How robust is the natural resource curse?

Prior research has found that countries rich in resources grow slower than countries with few natural resources. This paper re-examines the natural resource curse using updated data. In addition, the robustness of the results to various sample choices is investigated. The resource curse appears to be sensitive to the sample of countries used in the regression. In fact, eliminating a single country eliminates the significance of the curse. However, extending the methodology to allow for variation of the growth rate across decades improves the robustness of the negative effect of natural resources on the growth rate.