EMERGING ASIAN ECONOMIES GROWTH AT THE CROSSROADS NATURAL RESOURCES AND INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY

Abstract

Asia is rising with the emergence of highly growing economies of India, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, the global canvas. The development patterns of these economies would define the global development path in the coming years. These economies are rich in diversified natural resources that can be employed to augment their growth and development. However, natural resources cannot be operationalized for growth and development in an institutional vacuum. Effective institutions are imperative to channel natural resources for growth. The interplay of natural resources and quality institutions paves the path for economic growth along with other crucial factors i.e., labour force, trade openness, and gross fixed capital formation in emerging Asian economies. The study in hand aims to suggest policy recommendations for the international development practitioner as well as stakeholders of these countries to improve economic performance by avoiding the “Institutional Curse” to not land into the “Resource Curse” by exploring the impacts of natural resources and institutional quality’s interaction of economic upswing of emerging Asian economies. This study has used Panel Quantile ARDL with PMG specification to capture the coupling effect of natural resources and institutional quality for emerging Asian countries. The results showed that emerging Asian economies can extract higher growth from natural resources by pursuing institutional quality policy. This study explored the debate of natural resources and institutional curse for an important set of countries and provided policy to achieve a higher growth trajectory.