title: The resource curse and child mortality, 1961-2011.
abstract: There is now an extensive literature on the adverse effect of petroleum wealth on the political, economic and social well-being of a country. In this study we examine whether the so-called resource curse extends to the health of children, as measured by under-five mortality. We argue that the type of revenue available to governments in petroleum-rich countries reduces their incentive to improve child health. Whereas the type of revenue available to governments in petroleum-poor countries encourages policies designed to improve child health. In order to test that line of argument we employ a panel of 167 countries (all countries with populations above 250,000) for the years 1961-2011. We find robust evidence that petroleum-poor countries outperform petroleum-rich countries when it comes to reducing under-five mortality. This suggests that governments in oil abundant countries often fail to effectively use the resource windfall at their disposal to improve child health.
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Bilkent University, 06800, Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey. Electronic address: wigley@bilkent.edu.tr.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wigley
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D046688:Child Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003906:Developing Countries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006295:Health Resources / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010578:Petroleum / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000191:economics*; D011057:Politics
chemical_list: D010578:Petroleum
keywords: Country fixed-effects; Human capital; Panel data; Resource curse; Under-five mortality