This paper provides a review of current thinking on the economics of international trade in mineral resources. I first define what is meant by trade in mineral resources. I then discuss patterns of trade in mineral resources. The paper then moves on to the five topics requested by the World...

This article reports on my attempt to replicate Sachs and Warner's 1995 and 1997 resource curse working papers. The 1995 paper is not replicable for lack of a data archive. Pure replication of the 1997 paper is achieved. Statistical replication determines that the proposed institutional causes...

This paper presents an economic interpretation of the optimal “stopping” of perpetual project opportunities under both certainty and uncertainty. Prior to stopping, the expected rate of return from delay exceeds the rate of interest. The expected rate of return from delay is the sum of the...

There are frequent suggestions that countries specializing in mineral and energy extraction have a type of growth that is bad for the poor. Others claim that extraction-led growth is particularly good for the poor. Both claims are made without the support of substantial empirical evidence. This...

Growth regressions are often influenced by extreme observations in the sample. We demonstrate the usefulness of a simple Monte Carlo method as a diagnostic for sample robustness. We apply the technique to a data set used by Mehlum et al. (2006), who show that institutional quality is decisive...