But there are also countries with the exact same resources that are poor, like Angola with oil or Sierra Leone with diamonds. And while there are countries that lack extraordinary natural resource endowments and are poor, like Malawi,6 there are also countries that are resource-poor but highly developed, like South Korea or Germany. Clearly, there is more to wealth than winning the commodity lottery.
This message doesn’t appeal to populists. For instance, populists do not want to hear about how a resource like oil is difficult to extract, that it requires highly qualified people and carefully maintained infrastructure and well-organised firms to manage the whole process.