A resource belief-curse
Subtitle: oil and individualism
By: Rafael M. Di Tella, Juan Dubra, Robert MacCulloch
Contributors: MacCulloch, Robert; Dubra, Juan; Harvard Business School
Series: Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 08-035; Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 08-035
Publisher: Harvard Business School
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Boston]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 33
Description: 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 this is one aspect that the good design of policies on the extraction of oil and mineral resources should take into account.
Notes: "November 2007"--Publisher's web site.

Includes bibliographical references.