Agricultural Transformation and the Vulnerability to the Resource Curse in Developing Countries: A Reference to Sub-Saharan African Countries

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This study found that agricultural transformation decreases vulnerability to the resource curse in non-Sub-Saharan African developing countries, but increases it in Sub-Saharan African countries.

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This preprint examines whether agricultural transformation reduces a country’s “vulnerability to the resource curse,” conceptualized as susceptibility to resource-curse materialization rather than whether the curse occurs, using country-level indicators and a newly developed agricultural transformation index. The authors analyze an unbalanced panel of 73 developing countries (29 in Sub-Saharan Africa) from 2002–2020 with an error component two-stage least squares approach, finding that agricultural transformation lowers the vulnerability to the resource curse in non-Sub-Saharan African countries. In contrast, for Sub-Saharan African countries, agricultural transformation is associated with greater vulnerability, interpreted as evidence that transformation has not yet reached a level sufficient to reduce vulnerability. A key limitation stated is that the paper is a preprint and not peer reviewed. The paper does not explicitly discuss endometriosis or adenomyosis; it was included in the corpus via a keyword match in the upstream search index.

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Abstract

Abstract The voluminous studies on whether the resource curse materializes or not in developing countries have not reached a clear-cut conclusion on the effect of a country’s richness on its development outcomes. The present analysis considers the issue of resource curse through a different lens, that is, a country’s susceptibility to the materialization of the resource curse, qualified as the vulnerability to the resource curse. It investigates whether agricultural transformation helps reduce the vulnerability to the resource curse in developing countries, including in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. To do so, the analysis develops an indicator of vulnerability to the resource curse, and utilizes a newly developed index of agricultural transformation (at the country-level) by Diao et al. (2024, 2025). The empirical exercise builds on an unbalanced panel dataset of 73 developing countries, of which 29 SSA countries, over the annual period from 2002 to 2020, and utilizes the error component two-stage least squares econometric technique. We obtain that agricultural transformation reduces the vulnerability to the resource curse in NonSSA countries, but leads to greater vulnerability to the resource curse in SSA countries. The latter finding indicates that for SSA countries, agricultural transformation has not reached the requisite level to reduce the VRC. The finding calls for exploring empirically measures and policies that underpin the successful transformation of the agricultural sector, notably in SSA countries. JEL Classification : E24; O1; O13; O57; Q18.
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Agricultural Transformation and the Vulnerability to the Resource Curse in Developing Countries: A Reference to Sub-Saharan African Countries | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Agricultural Transformation and the Vulnerability to the Resource Curse in Developing Countries: A Reference to Sub-Saharan African Countries Sena Kimm GNANGNON This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8872544/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The voluminous studies on whether the resource curse materializes or not in developing countries have not reached a clear-cut conclusion on the effect of a country’s richness on its development outcomes. The present analysis considers the issue of resource curse through a different lens, that is, a country’s susceptibility to the materialization of the resource curse, qualified as the vulnerability to the resource curse. It investigates whether agricultural transformation helps reduce the vulnerability to the resource curse in developing countries, including in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. To do so, the analysis develops an indicator of vulnerability to the resource curse, and utilizes a newly developed index of agricultural transformation (at the country-level) by Diao et al. (2024, 2025). The empirical exercise builds on an unbalanced panel dataset of 73 developing countries, of which 29 SSA countries, over the annual period from 2002 to 2020, and utilizes the error component two-stage least squares econometric technique. We obtain that agricultural transformation reduces the vulnerability to the resource curse in NonSSA countries, but leads to greater vulnerability to the resource curse in SSA countries. The latter finding indicates that for SSA countries, agricultural transformation has not reached the requisite level to reduce the VRC. The finding calls for exploring empirically measures and policies that underpin the successful transformation of the agricultural sector, notably in SSA countries. JEL Classification : E24; O1; O13; O57; Q18. Agricultural Economics & Policy Development Economics Agricultural transformation Vulnerability to the resource curse Sub-Saharan African countries Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. 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