Crescimento econômico, estoque de capital acumulado e paradoxo da abundância na Àfrica Subsaariana

Abstract

The problem of this research emerges from two recurring questions about GDP (real) per capita growth in Sub-Saharan countries with an abundance of natural resources. It asks: (1) Why do resource rich countries tend to have a low rate of GDP per capita growth? (2) How would be the growth, consumption and accumulated capital stock look like, if all income from natural resources were invested in reproducible capital? The trend of countries rich in raw materials having unimpressive economic growth is known as the "resource curse" or “Paradox of Plenty” in the economic literature. Thus, the first article is titled “Empirical Approach about Paradox of Plenty Hypothesis and Adjusted Net Savings. The empirical tests, obtained through application of the Hartwick rule and the threshold model for panel data, refer to the 1970 to 2014 period, and support (validate) most of the assumptions of the paradox of plenty, however some assumptions did not have statistical validation. The results also point out a different perspective for resource curse hypothesis: the impact of natural resources on economic growth depends in part on the economic cycles of commodities. It was also pointed out that countries in which the abundance of resources negatively impacts economic growth are those that neglected human development (education), the investment in fixed capital and those with a negative Adjusted Net Savings. In addition, it is noted that there is little statistical evidence that natural resources dependence by itself contributes to low per capita growth. In order to answer the second research problem, it was calculated the hypothetical capital stock accumulated for Sub Saharan Africa countries rich in natural resources through the use of the Hartwick rule for sustainability. The Hartwick rule was use in order to know what would be the accumulated capital of these countries if they had invested all income from export of natural resources in reproducible capital. The empirical results show that the vast majority of the countries could triple their capital stock if they follow the Hartwick rule.