Do Resource Windfalls Improve the Standard of Living in Sub-Saharan African Countries?

We examine the impact of resource windfall on the standard of living both in the short-run and long-run, using a sample of 130 countries, 1963-2007. Then, we systematically investigate the effect of resource windfall on welfare in three different groups of countries: We find that in the short-run resource windfall is welfare enhancing in the whole sample, especially via increases in income and decreases in inequality. However, inSSA countries, the size of welfare improvement is small and it is smaller and almost zeroafter one year in fragile Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. In the whole sample, aresource windfall shock leads to significant welfare growth even in the long-run, but wecouldn't find any significant long-run effect of resource windfall in SSA countries.