The writer was selective in choosing his examples.
PARIS: I fully agree with the main thrust of the article but differ on one point. Applying the natural resource curse idea for Pakistan is completely wrong and the writer is simply hiding behind an interesting, though not fully proven, idea.
What is important for the author’s viewpoint to hold merit is to know whether having lots of natural resources causes a lack of development. A simple correlation tells us nothing. We have Britain and Norway with lots of oil and/or gas, as well as the US and Canada with plenty of natural resources and they are all developed nations. The writer was selective in choosing his examples.
Zain Chaudhry
Published in The Express Tribune, August 16th, 2012.
