Henry Willebald (Universidad de la República, Uruguay)
Settler economies –we select Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and Uruguay– are characterized for the abundance of natural resources. However, the natural capital is not homogeneous and it induces differences in terms of economic performance. The paper discusses the effect of natural resources on economic growth and income distribution in the tradition of the curse (and blessing) of the natural resources hypothesis, from the mid-19th century to WWI. We consider the interaction between natural resources that a country posses, the type of land according to the agrarian aptitude and the quality of its institutions in terms of the concept of appropriability of a resource. We propose two approaches. One of them is based on the estimation of the statistical relationship between economic performance, natural resources and institutions. The other one is based on the historical description of the distribution of land rights and the institutional arrangements related to the land property in the River Plate and Australasia. According to our analysis, we find evidence to not reject the curse hypothesis of the abundant natural resources on the production side, although we do not accept the appropriability hypothesis. We obtain the contrary results in terms of distribution, where large land endowments would be related with higher income equality and, effectively, the technical dimension of the appropriability problem would be supported by our evidence. Considering the institutional arrangements related with the land property, they seemed suitable for the economic growth but inadequate to promote more egalitarian societies. The evolution was more apparent in the Hispanic ex-colonies that those conformed in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, where “good” institutions foster the blessing of the (less appropriable) natural resources.
