The role of energy poverty in the linkage between natural resources and economic performance: Resource curse or resource blessing?

The resource curse hypothesis is a complex phenomenon, and its dilemma remains un-resolved. Several studies have tested the resource curse hypothesis; however, researchers continue to seek conclusions. In this paper, energy poverty, green innovation, and economic complexity are used to test the resource curse hypothesis. The study includes empirical analysis for 33 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and covers the time period from 1995 to 2018. A dynamic common correlated effects estimator demonstrates that natural resource rent adversely affects economic performance by reducing economic growth, validating the resource curse hypothesis in OECD countries. The estimation shows a robust association among energy poverty, green innovation, and economic complexity with improving economic performance. Additional analysis, along with conditional distributions for the impacts on economic performance of natural resources, green innovation, energy poverty, and economic complexity, is conducted via the method of moments quantile regression (MMQR). Across all distributions, energy poverty, green innovation, and economic complexity are positive and statistically significant, whereas natural resources' role in economic performance is vice versa.