Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Resources Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resourpol Does mineral development provide a basis for sustainable economic development? John Dobra a,d , Matt Dobra b, ⁎ , Abdoulaye Ouedraogo c a University of Nevada, Reno, United States b Methodist University, United States c World Bank, United States d Fraser Institute, Canada ARTICLE INFO JEL codes: Q3 Q5 D7 04 ABSTRACT The extraction of non-renewable resources is broadly viewed as an unsustainable activity. After 60+ years of examining the role of non-renewable resource development in broader economic development, and its im- plications for economic welfare, there is little consensus on its effects–or even its desirability. This paper ex- amines the issue of sustainability in the context of non-renewable mineral resources which, we argue, is en- twined with the mineral extraction industry‘s “boom-bust” and “resource curse” images. We present a standard Solow-style economic growth model that integrates mineral endowment and uses the model to examine the mineral blessing or curse question empirically with a cross-section of countries. The model is tested using several econometric techniques that generally support the mineral blessing hypothesis. On the question of sustainability, we contrast the applicability of the concept in the contexts of renewable and non-renewable resource devel- opment. In the former case, the concept of sustainable yield is relatively straightforward. In the latter, the concept is much more difficult to apply. Sustainable development of non-renewable resources depends on factors beyond physical rates of production, such as governance and investment in human and physical capital. 1. Introduction Sustainability in its various manifestations is a major concern for many in both academia and the public at large. These concerns range from climate change and its numerous and far-ranging implications to more focused issues like forestry and agriculture. In the latter case, that of renewable resources, the concept of sustained yield is well known and relatively simple in principle. Yet, when it comes to non-renewable resources like minerals, the concept of sustainability becomes much more difficult to formulate. In fact, to most people the concept of the sustainable use of non-renewable resources appears downright para- doxical at first glance. In a historical context, humanity has typically leapt from one set of unsustainable practices to another. The hunters and gatherers of our distant past were engaged in an unsustainable activity: they over- hunted and over-gathered. They eventually learned how to domesticate animals to eat instead of hunting them and to cultivate crops instead of randomly foraging for edible plants, ushering in an agricultural re- volution. Along the same lines, the Stone Age was not sustainable. But, as Sheikh Zaki Yamani's immortal saying goes, “the Stone Age did not end for lack of stone.” On the contrary, it was because there were metallurgical revolutions that led to bronze, and later iron, that pro- vided more useful materials for satisfying human wants. From this perspective, human socio-economic and technological evolution has consisted of a long series of unsustainable models that have been abandoned–not necessarily because they were unsustainable, but be- cause our ancestors found better ways of achieving human survival. Indeed, the very process of sustainable progress may ultimately be so- cieties lurching from one unsustainable system to another via price adjustment and technological progress in response to that which is unsustainable. In this paper, we address the issue of whether mineral extraction provides a basis for sustainable development. To do so requires ex- amining several initial and intermediate concepts; ranging from a very broad inquiry into the very nature of sustainability to a narrow focus on what it means for non-renewable natural resource extraction to be sustainable. Other authors have examined these questions, and their findings are reported and discussed in Section 2. Regarding the specific issue of the sustainability of non-renewable resources, most authors have focused on the relationship between mining or mineral resource extraction employment, or output, and dependent variables such as migration, education, and linkages to other industries like https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2018.03.013 Received 31 December 2016; Received in revised form 20 March 2018; Accepted 20 March 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: mdobra@methodist.edu (M. Dobra). Resources Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx 0301-4207/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Dobra, J., Resources Policy (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2018.03.013