Liberia: A Flower Grows in West Africa

analysis

Are Liberia's new steel and rubber concessions a sign of reform -- or the exception that proves corruption still rules in resource-rich countries?

It is a persuasive measure of humanity's boneheaded venality that natural resources endowment often leads to a country's impoverishment. A relatively benign form of the "resource curse" can be found in developed countries, as Holland found when, in 1959, a large natural gas discovery stoked an overvalued currency and eviscerated the country's manufacturing sector, a phenomenon that came to be known as "Dutch disease."

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