The Effect of Natural Resouirce Abundance on Economic Growth: A Case Study of Iran and Natural Resource Curse

Abstract

This major paper examines the existence of natural resource curse in Iran. We use a time-series data set for a 46 year period from 1965 to 2011. Our major proxies to measure the presence of oil dependency and thus the resource curse are the terms of trade (tot) and the ratio of oil revenues to government total revenues(oil rev/gov rev). The obtained results from our empirical regression support the existence of resource curse in this country.