A Resource Belief-Curse? Oil and Individualism / Rafael Di Tella, Juan Dubra, Robert MacCulloch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Di Tella, Rafael.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Dubra, Juan.

MacCulloch, Robert.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w14556.

NBER working paper series no. w14556

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2008.

Summary:

We study the correlation between a belief concerning individualism and a measure of luck in the US during the period 1983-2004. The measure of beliefs is the answer to a question related to whether the poor should be helped by the government or if they should help themselves, while the measure of luck is the share of the oil industry in the state's economy multiplied by the price of oil. The correlation is negative, suggesting that more reliance on luck is correlated with less individualism. We provide three short models that help interpret this correlation. One implication of this finding is that societies that depend heavily on oil, and perhaps natural resources more generally, will experience a heavier demand for government intervention. We argue that if a government cares about the impact of its natural resource policies on the demand of government intervention more generally, it should take this effect into account.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2008.