Book Chapter
Natural Resources and Economic Development

This chapter examines the performance of two types of resource-abundant economies during the ‘golden age’ of the world economy from 1870 to 1914. These are the ‘Regions of Recent Settlement’ (United States, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and South Africa); and plantation and peasant economies in ‘Tropical Countries’ (Burma, Siam, the Gold Coast, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ceylon, and Malaya). Disparities in the performance of the two groups of countries were attributed to internal problems and policy failures.