NancyLebovitz comments on Against Cryonics & For Cost-Effective Charity - Less Wrong

10 Post author: multifoliaterose 10 August 2010 03:59AM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 10 August 2010 03:55:34PM *  2 points [-]

Do gambling and tourism count as resource curses? They're renewable resources, but they don't seem to do localities much good.

Comment author: James_Miller 10 August 2010 04:38:27PM *  4 points [-]

No because an incompetent or evil government can lose them as a source of revenue. Zimbabwe, for example, has no doubt lost many tourist dollars because of state violence. This loss might be deterring some other African governments from engaging in too much state violence.

In contrast, governments often get more economic aid if they engage in destructive economic policies.

Comment author: Oligopsony 10 August 2010 04:52:09PM 2 points [-]

Theoretically, a particularly beautiful landscape or cultural affinity for some profession might lead to Dutch Disease effects. The renewability of the resource isn't really the relevant factor; it just happens to be that most supply shocks of the required magnitude consist of natural resource endowments.

Service industries like gambling and tourism don't generally have these effects, though. What they do have is typically lower wages, greater seasonality, and less technology spillover effects than manufacturing.