The Resource Curse: A Statistical Mirage?
A surprising feature of resource-rich economies is slow growth. It is often argued that natural-resource production impedes development by creating market or institutional failures. A declining resource sector is disproportionately reflected in resource-dependent countries. Dr. James Alexander argues that there is little evidence that resource dependence impedes growth in non-resource sectors.
Dr. James was born in Northern California and received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wyoming in 2012. After graduating, he worked for two years as a research fellow at the Center for the Analysis of Resource-Rich Economies at the University of Oxford and is currently Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Alaska Anchorage. His research interests broadly include resource-rich economies and he has published numerous articles that examine the social and economic consequences of natural-resource booms and busts.
The evening’s discussion was moderated by Larry Persily
