21 Lacking natural resources or having too many? Japan has hardly any. Yet, its economic history, which was marked by two atomic bombs, suggests that it never needed them. Compare its endowment in natural resources to the extraordinary geological wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which may have largely contributed to impoverishment and political bankruptcy. Yet, the idea that countries with lots of natural resources suffer a “resource curse” (the paradox of plenty) does not hold and cannot be generalized: Qatar, Dubai, or even Botswana have been able to use their natural resources to kick-start their respective economic development processes.

Being a landlocked country? Switzerland has been one for as long as one can remember. Yet, it exploited that condition to rigorously assess its strategic options and to choose an optimal growth strategy: its geographical location has perhaps forced it to establish good, mutually profitable relations with its neighbors, as its policy makers understood that their country’s economic success is dependent on that of the neighboring states.

<mark>Hot and humid climate? Dubai is not in a place known for the gentleness of its temperatures, but this has not prevented capital holders of the world from going there to invest their savings and even build their second homes which often remain unoccupied. Just like Dubai, Gabon, Congo, Angola or Sudan have huge oil reserves yet no retired American or Japanese billionaire will consider going there to settle and enjoy his or her fortune.</mark> <mark>Narrow markets? The size of Singapore or the modest population of Costa Rica did not prevent them from positioning themselves as major exporters and from making huge gains from their policy choices. With reduced transportation costs, major technological progress and a greater coordination of trade policies facilitating exchanges, the potential market of any small African country is no longer limited to its borders. The Chadian market or the Burundian market is actually the world market, provided that they are able to improve their business environment.</mark> Weak and ineffective political institutions? While there is a lot of empirical research pointing to large macro effects of “governance” on growth (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2002), it is still unclear what that concept means precisely. In fact, it is extremely difficult to identify specific quantitative measures of institutional quality that are really significant in statistical models of growth. The typical measures of institutional quality such as “government effectiveness” that are often used in empirical growth investigations rely on surveys of perceptions by the private sector of the government’s behavior, not on the well-established and sustainable institutional features for which they are proxies (property rights, enforcement of contracts, etc.). It is puzzling that some countries that have been praised for economic successes and poverty reduction often perform poorly on governance indicators (i. e., China or South Korea prior to 1980). Many drivers of growth such as trade, education, or even governance, are endogenous and the empirical literature has not convincingly disentangled their effects. Moreover, most institutional factors associated with growth such as property rights are not easy to establish (in some countries, they have resulted from decades or even centuries of sociopolitical changes).