The Political Economy of the Natural Resources Curse : Now Publishers : 9781601984968 : 22 Dec 2011 : The Political Economy of the Natural Resources Curse focuses on political economy theories of the resource curse and scrutinizes how well, or poorly, these theories have been integrated with empirical work. One reason why this integration is important lies in the practical importance of pinning down the causal links involved in the resource curse. A second reason for focusing on integration of theory and empirics is that the resource curse is a potentially fruitful venue for testing political economy theories generally. The Political Economy of the Natural Resources Curse starts with an overview of the broader economic literature on the resource curse, explaining how interest first arose and summarizing the market-based and political economy theories developed to explain it. After these preliminaries, the focus tightens to political economy research on the resource curse and examines t