Is oil export a curse in developing economies? Evidence of paradox of plenty on food dependency

Abstract

The study focuses on the “curse of resources” and on the “paradox of plenty”, to test the extent to which the oil-export may contribute to the food dependency and to the food insecurity of a country. The empirical analysis is carried out in countries characterized by a percentage of oil contribution to the GDP between 45% to 90% meanwhile facing food security challenges. The estimated model shows the sizable and statistically significant impact of oil export on food import and undernourishment. The analysis is further extended to the tails implementing, besides OLS, the quantile regression estimator.