Testing of Natural Resources as Blessing or Curse to the Knowledge Economy in Arab Countries

Abstract This paper focuses on testing if natural resources constituted a blessing or a curse to the progress of knowledge economy in Arab countries. Some of these economies are based on natural resources and mainly oil and gas that are major sources of economic rents. The attained results from all the sample of Arab countries, show how knowledge variables are negatively related to the rents from natural resources. Natural resources appear thus as a curse to the expansion of knowledge economy in the overall set of countries. But, when taken country by country as in the literature, natural resources as blessing are shown over some economies. Transformation of curse to a sustainable blessings is the promising economic and social direction of change that could increase further inclusive growth in the Arab economies.