Qatar: the resource curse factor and prospects for economic diversification

Abstract

Qatar’s rapid development and modernization offer great rewards as well as risks. The rapid development in Qatar has been fueled almost exclusively through wealth created from trade in petrochemicals. This source of wealth places Qatar at risk from what has been identified as the natural resource curse. The risk lays in dependency on one commodity for economic growth and its concomitant degradation of broader development of non-petrochemical sectors and human capital. This thesis explores the degree to which Qatar is subject to the resource curse and how the most commonly prescribed solution to the resource curse – economic diversification – will be successful in Qatar’s continued development.