Nonlinear impact of natural resources and risk factors on the US economic growth

Natural resources and risk factors are critical to the economic progress of a country. Previous literature covers several regions regarding the influence of natural resources and risks on economic growth, mostly using incomplete specification and conventional estimators. The present study investigates the influence of natural resources, geopolitical risk, and economic risk on the economic growth of the US economy over the period of 1990-2020, by additionally examining the role of research and development expenditure in economic performance. Due to the irregular distribution of the variables, a novel Method of Moment Quantile Regression is employed to validate the resource curse hypothesis of the country. It is also shown that geopolitical risk is adversely, yet insignificantly, associated with the economic growth of the country. On the other hand, economic risk and research & development expenditure are the significant drivers of the U.S. economic growth. For robustness study, the findings are authenticated via applying the Bootstrap Quantile Regression. Based on the empirical results, this study recommends strengthening institutions, reducing economic and geopolitical risks, and increasing Investment in research & development for economic security.