Capital accumulation and resource depletion

de Kirk Hamilton

"How rich would resource-abundant countries be if they had actually followed the Hartwick Rule (invest resource rents in other assets) over the past 30 years? Hamilton, Ruta, and Tajibaeva use time series data on investments and rents on exhaustible resource extraction for 70 countries to answer this question. The results are striking: Gabon, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela would all be as wealthy as the Republic of Korea, while Nigeria would be five times as well off as it is currently. The authors also derive a more general rule for sustainability--maintain positive constant genuine investment--and use this to draw further empirical results. This paper--a product of the Environment Department--is part of a larger effort in the department to foster sustainable development"--World Bank web site.