Natural Resources Depletion and Economic Growth: Evidence from ASEAN Countries

Abstract

The economic growth of any country determines how developed a country is. It determines the development of any economy. However, many factors such as less labor, fewer resources, destruction of land etc., are now devaluating the economic growth and killing it. This question is of much importance as it frustrates the financial analysts and researchers. Therefore, the present study investigates the said problem in ten Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries as the traditional growth has slowed down in these countries, and to see what factors are damaging their economic economic growth. The data of 25 years is collected from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The independent variables are natural resources depletion, mineral depletion, and energy depletion and their effects are measured on the economic growth of respective countries. The control variables are population growth and per capita income. For analysis, we have conducted cross-sectional-dependence, homogeneity tests for seeing whether the factors are heterogeneous or not. The framework for all countries has been examined using CIPS unit root test. For measuring the directional hypothesis, we have used Konya Granger causality tests. The results indicate that natural resources depletion and mineral depletion have been major causes to destroy the economic growth of many countries. This study helps the analysts to focus on how they can have more natural, mineral, and energy resources to gauge with the growing need for the betterment of economy.