Natural Resources and Economic Development explores a key para- dox: why is natural resource exploitation not yielding greater benefits to the poor economies of Africa, Asia and Latin America? Part One examines this paradox both through a historical review of resource use and development and through examining current theories that explain the under-performance of today’s resource-abundant economies, and proposes a frontier expansion hypothesis as an alter- native explanation. Part Two develops models to analyse the key economic factors underlying land expansion and water use in develop- ing countries. Part Three explores further the ‘‘dualismwithin dualism’’ structure of resource dependency, rural poverty and resource degrada- tion within developing countries, and through illustrative.
