Natural resource abundance and human capital accumulation

SummaryThis paper studies the link between resource abundance and human capital accumulation. It reviews the commonly used indicators of resource abundance and human capital accumulation. The case for a form of resource curse in human capital accumulation is not robust to reasonable changes in these indicators. In fact, subsoil wealth and resource rents per capita are shown to be significantly correlated with improved indicators of human capital accumulation. If mineral wealth is what authors have in mind when they refer to natural resource abundance, then they should choose indicators that measure this concept as accurately as possible.