A study of resource curse effect of Chinese provinces based on Human Developing Index

Traditional opinion considers that natural resources play an important positive role in economic development, while resource curse theory holds that natural resources usually obstruct economic increase. This debate needs further exploration. In most of empirical studies on resource curse theory, the economic development of an area is mainly evaluated by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), however, the social and cultural contents of economic development are seldom considered. Thus, the Human Developing Index (HDI) was chosen to describe the comprehensive developing situation of an area in our study. Based on the panel data from the year of 2000 to 2011, the relationship between Human Developing Index and resource exploitation degree (RED) of 30 provinces in China (Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao were not included because of the restriction of data acquisition) was investigated by correlation coefficient analysis and regression analysis. We found that resource curse did exist over the entire country and its effect on 30 provinces were not exactly the same. According to the effects of resource curse, these provinces could be classified into four types: no resource curse provinces, slight resource curse provinces, severe resource curse provinces, and extreme resource curse provinces. Testing from two short time periods 2000-2005, and 2006-2011, the resource curse effect was not prominent. However, testing from the entire period of 2000-2011, the effect was obvious among each province.