Are natural resources also bad for infrastructure quality?

This study contributes to the extensive non‐consensus literature on the resource curse by examining the effect of natural resource dependence on infrastructure quality. We show that natural resources on average have a negative effect on the overall quality of infrastructure, including the quality of various infrastructures such as roads, ports, railroads, airports and the quality of electricity supply. However, we find that, beyond a certain threshold, natural resources improve the quality of some infrastructure. This study also supports the importance of improving the quality of institutions, as we show that natural resources are a blessing for the infrastructure quality in countries with a better institutional framework.