5 ms·

Venezuela has higher per capita oil reserves than countries like Norway [1]. Why is it in such a bad state then? Shouldn't they have at least decence economy if

• shalmanese 11y ago
  Dutch Disease: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
• ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse "The resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty, refers to the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources, specifically point-source non-renewable resources like minerals and fuels, tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. This is hypothesized to happen for many different reasons, including a decline in the competitiveness of other economic sectors (caused by appreciation of the real exchange rate as resource revenues enter an economy, a phenomenon known as Dutch disease), volatility of revenues from the natural resource sector due to exposure to global commodity market swings, government mismanagement of resources, or weak, ineffectual, unstable or corrupt institutions (possibly due to the easily diverted actual or anticipated revenue stream from extractive activities). The resource curse may not be universal for all countries with an abundance of natural resources, but "for many countries it is real." Norway escaped this partly due to being aware that it was a problem: "The Iraqi who saved Norway from Oil" http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabd...