These policies exacerbate the economic cycle, and contribute to the paradox of the resource curse.

ECONOMIST: Commodities

To break the resource curse, in short, one needs the kind of government that money cannot buy.

ECONOMIST: Commodities

So tight is the labour market that the economy of western Wyoming is suffering a first-world version of the resource curse.

ECONOMIST: Natural gas in Wyoming

Africa suffers from the resource curse, which blights countries nature made rich.

ECONOMIST: Africa's natural resources

The effects of the resource curse are painfully clear in Africa.

ECONOMIST: Africa's natural resources

How can these pools of assets break the resource curse?

ECONOMIST: Commodities

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The resource curse damages the economies of countries blessed with great exportable natural wealth, increasing volatility by an overreliance on global commodity prices, starving other sectors, distorting exchange rates, and driving painful cycles of boom and bust.

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Can Africa break its 'resource curse'?

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During the recent commodities' boom, resource-rich countries have sought to escape the curse by pouring natural-resource income into sovereign-wealth funds (SWFs).

ECONOMIST: Commodities