بلاي منابع و اثر آزمندي

The Blight of Resources and Greed Effect

The natural resource rich countriesʹ underdevelopment is one of unsolved mysteries and concerns for economic, social and political researchers. To answer this mystery, various solutions have been put forth so far. According to a most recent solution the root of the problem lies in the presence of powerful interest groups and the weakness of legal institutions which prepare the ground for rent seeking and results in an economic underdevelopment. This paper looks at the abundance of resources from a political economic perspective and spells out the behavior of the saving rate variable in the framework of institutions and interest groupsʹ conflicts. Introducing the "greed effect" the author shows that the saving rate will behave anti-cyclical and the consumption will exceed the abundance of resources. At the end, a quantitative and qualitative investigation demonstrates the impact of greed on Iranʹs oil boom in mid 1950s.