Primary Resources, Secondary Labor: Natural Resources and Immigration Policy

AbstractThis article argues that substantial natural resource wealth leads to more restrictive low-skill immigration policy in advanced democracies. High-value natural resource production often crowds out labor-intensive firms that produce tradable goods. When these proimmigration business interests disappear due to deindustrialization, also known as the Dutch Disease, the proimmigration coalition weakens in domestic politics. Without strong business pressure for increased immigration, policy-makers close their doors to immigrants to accommodate anti-immigrant interests. Using a newly expanded dataset on immigration policy across twenty-four wealthy democracies, I find that oil-rich democracies are more likely to restrict low-skill immigration, especially when their economies are exposed to foreign competition in international trade. The results supplement the voter-based theories of immigration policy and contribute to an emerging literature on the political economy of natural resources and international migration.

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A meta-analysis of natural resources and conflict

Research & Politics ◽

10.1177/2053168018818232 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 205316801881823 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

William O’Brochta

Keyword(s):

Natural Resources ◽

Natural Resource ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Civil Conflict ◽

Future Research ◽

Aggregate Effect ◽

Resource Wealth ◽

Natural Resource Wealth ◽

The Relationship ◽

Variable Measurement

The relationship between natural resource wealth and civil conflict remains unclear, despite prolonged scholarly attention. Conducting a meta-analysis—a quantitative literature review—can help synthesize this broad and disparate field to provide clearer directions for future research. Meta-analysis tools determine both the aggregate effect of natural resources on conflict and whether any particular ways in which variables are measured systematically bias the estimated effect. I conduct a meta-analysis using sixty-nine studies from sixty-two authors. I find that there is no aggregate relationship between natural resources and conflict. Most variation in variable measurement does not alter the estimated effect. However, measuring natural resource wealth using Primary Commodity Exports and including controls for mountainous terrain and ethnic fractionalization all do significantly impact the results. These findings suggest that it may be worth exploring more nuanced connections between natural resources and conflict instead of continuing to study the overall relationship.

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Foreign Direct Investment Flow to Africa: Does Natural Resources Matter？

International Journal of Economics and Finance ◽

10.5539/ijef.v11n9p67 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (9) ◽

pp. 67

Author(s):

Philip Agyei Peprah ◽

Yao Hongxing ◽

Alex Boadi Dankyi

Keyword(s):

Natural Resources ◽

Natural Resource ◽

Fixed Effects ◽

Trade Openness ◽

African Countries ◽

Fdi Inflows ◽

Development Framework ◽

Exogenous Factors ◽

Resource Wealth ◽

Natural Resource Wealth

In this study, it explored connections between FDI inflows and natural resource. The paper is an effort to investigate a sample of 10 most resourced sub-Sahara African countries and examine the influence of natural resources on FDI inflow. Further, natural resource wealth is reflected to weaken the FDI inflow. This study discovers if the natural resource overflow affects the FDI inflows. By means of panel data for a sample dated 1990-2017, the paper employed fixed effects method and settles that natural resource slows down FDI inflow of the host nation. The results indicate that economic growth, labor force, trade openness and financial development framework promote FDI inflow in Sub-Sahara Africa countries. The study proposes that FDI inflow to SSA is not only driven by the availability of natural resources in a country but by some exogenous factors, countries with non-existence of natural resources and can obtain FDI by cultivating their bodies and policy environment. Second, multifaceted organizations like the IMF and the World Bank can play a significant role in assisting FDI by encouraging good organisations in SSA.

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Global poverty, global sacrifices, and natural resource reforms

International Theory ◽

10.1017/s1752971918000209 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 48-80 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Shmuel Nili

Keyword(s):

Natural Resources ◽

Natural Resource ◽

Alternative Strategy ◽

Global Poverty ◽

Resource Wealth ◽

Moral Claims ◽

Natural Resource Wealth ◽

The Relationship

My aim in this essay is to advance discussion of how to justify the sacrifices that reforms combating global poverty might entail for the world’s better-off. I begin from the assumption that we should not try to motivate such sacrifices solely through the hope that they will produce significant poverty gains. Instead, we should also explore whether the affluent actually have compelling moral claims to the goods that they might be asked to relinquish as part of certain global reforms. This alternative strategy forms the background for my discussion of two influential global reform proposals. The first proposal is to tax the natural resource wealth enjoyed by various affluent countries in order to ameliorate global poverty. The second proposal is to prohibit the resource corporations based in affluent democracies from purchasing natural resources controlled by extreme kleptocrats. I argue that once we examine the relationship between these proposals from a sacrifice-sensitive perspective, we find that they genuinely conflict with each other, and that there are sacrifice-related reasons to put aside the canonical proposal for a global redistribution of natural resource wealth.

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Rebel Natural Resource Exploitation and Conflict Duration

Journal of Conflict Resolution ◽

10.1177/0022002718755853 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 63 (3) ◽

pp. 591-616 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Justin M. Conrad ◽

Kevin T. Greene ◽

James Igoe Walsh ◽

Beth Elise Whitaker

Keyword(s):

Natural Resources ◽

Natural Resource ◽

Resource Exploitation ◽

Civil Conflicts ◽

Conflict Processes ◽

Conflict Duration ◽

Natural Resource Exploitation ◽

Resource Wealth ◽

The Government ◽

Natural Resource Wealth

How does natural resource wealth influence the duration of civil conflicts? We theorize that the exploitation of natural resources can strengthen rebels’ “power to resist” the government, but this depends on how rebels earn funding from those resources. Distinguishing between the extortion and smuggling of natural resources, we posit that smuggling in particular is more likely to give rebels the flexibility and mobility needed to effectively resist government repression. We then test this proposition empirically using new data that identify not only whether rebels profit from resources but also how they do so. We find that only when rebels smuggle natural resources do civil conflicts last significantly longer. In contrast, conflicts in which rebel groups earn money from extorting natural resource production are not significantly more likely to endure. This finding is of special interest because past work has largely ignored how rebels earn income from natural resources and the implication this distinction might have on conflict processes.

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Are we measuring natural resource wealth correctly? A reconceptualization of natural resource value in the era of climate change

10.35188/unu-wider/2021/952-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Amir Lebdioui

Keyword(s):

Natural Resource ◽

Resource Extraction ◽

Resource Value ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Great Loss ◽

Natural Resource Extraction ◽

True Value ◽

Resource Wealth ◽

International Donors ◽

Natural Resource Wealth

Underlying the management of revenues from natural resource extraction is a set of assumptions about how abundant and how valuable these resources are. Nevertheless, existing approaches to measuring the value of extractive resources are seriously flawed. This paper proposes two avenues for improving them. It explains how a multidimensional approach to measuring resource wealth can be used to identify the policy challenges that a country might face as it sets out its strategy for managing extractive revenues. It also provides a rethinking of the valuation of extractive wealth by integrating environmental considerations. Extractive activities can at times incur a great loss of (renewable) opportunity income, either directly or indirectly, because of their environmental impact. By analysing a range of examples from across the globe, this paper extracts key lessons on the true value of extractives and why it matters for policy makers, civil society, and international donors today.

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Resource Wealth as Leverage: Natural Resources and the Failure of Non-Violent Campaigns

Government and Opposition ◽

10.1017/gov.2019.10 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 56 (1) ◽

pp. 102-120 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Mustafa Kirisci ◽

Emirhan Demirhan

Keyword(s):

Natural Resources ◽

Group Dynamics ◽

Natural Resource ◽

Political Movements ◽

Growing Body ◽

Resource Wealth ◽

Target States ◽

External Actors ◽

Natural Resource Wealth

AbstractWhile the growing body of research on non-violent political movements centres on the idea that choosing non-violence tends to produce more favourable outcomes for dissidents, the question of why some non-violent campaigns still fail has not been sufficiently empirically investigated. Building on the extant research on the effects of group dynamics and certain external actors, we examine the role of the natural resource wealth of target states on the outcomes of non-violent campaigns. We hypothesize that the probability that a non-violent movement will fail increases as the target state's natural resource wealth increases. This natural resource wealth could serve to neutralize the potential for support from both domestic and external actors, thereby increasing the risk of failure. The results of our statistical analyses support our hypothesis and suggest that non-violent campaigns are more likely to fail in states with higher natural resource wealth, particularly that which stems from oil.

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Using Natural Resources for Development: Why Has It Proven So Difficult?

The Journal of Economic Perspectives ◽

10.1257/jep.30.1.161 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 30 (1) ◽

pp. 161-184 ◽

Cited By ~ 118

Author(s):

Anthony J. Venables

Keyword(s):

Natural Resources ◽

Economic Performance ◽

Developing Economies ◽

Investment Decisions ◽

Private Investment ◽

Adverse Impacts ◽

Political Problem ◽

Fiscal Regimes ◽

Resource Wealth ◽

Natural Resource Wealth

Developing economies have found it hard to use natural resource wealth to improve their economic performance. Utilizing resource endowments is a multistage economic and political problem that requires private investment to discover and extract the resource, fiscal regimes to capture revenue, judicious spending and investment decisions, and policies to manage volatility and mitigate adverse impacts on the rest of the economy. Experience is mixed, with some successes (such as Botswana and Malaysia) and more failures. This paper reviews the challenges that are faced in successfully managing resource wealth, the evidence on country performance, and the reasons for disappointing results.

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