Abstract
The point of departure for this article is the notion of a natural resource curse. Taking stock of the literature examining what lies behind a negative association with growth, we stress the importance of examining the role of institutions and how they evolve in the specific context. Against this backdrop, the study reviews the case of Abu Dhabi and its reform agenda in support of diversification. We discuss some of its successes as well as the challenges and issues which influence its way forward. In doing so, we add new insight to the way the different mechanisms associated with the resource curse play out. The article reflects on what features of Abu Dhabi’s development are specific, and which are of more generic interest. On this basis, the article considers what lessons can be learned from the past experience, for Abu Dhabi itself as well as more broadly for other economies confronted with similar challenges.
Prof. Thomas Andersson, President, International Association of Entrepreneurship and Technology, Sweden, previously was Deputy Director of Science, Technology and Industry at the OECD and Vice Chancellor of Jönköping University, Sweden. Prof. Piero Formica is Senior Research Fellow at the Innovation Value Institute, Maynooth University, Ireland, and the winner of the Innovation Luminary Award 2017.
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Notes
- 1.
The UAE is part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for the Arab States of the Gulf. The other member countries are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
- 2.
In Algeria and Qatar, for instance, the tail ends on the skills distribution are thicker—the population with at the most primary education is larger than in Abu Dhabi, but they also have a higher proportion of population with tertiary education (Andersson et al. 2010a).
- 3.
The GII is based on an iterative process measuring innovation on an annual basis. Since the numbers of countries as well as the indicators vary over the years, the observation of trends tends to be better grounded that shifts in ranking from year to year. See further:
https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/userfiles/file/reportpdf/GII-2014-v5.pdf
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Andersson, T., Formica, P. (2018). Lessons from Abu Dhabi: The Road Towards an Innovative Entrepreneurial Economy. In: Faghih, N., Zali, M. (eds) Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Contributions to Management Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75913-5_20
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