摘要：What are the consequences of resource-based regional specialization, when it
persists over a long period of time? While much of the literature argues that
specialization is beneficial, recent work suggests it may be costly in the long
run, due to economic or political reasons. I examine this question empirically,
using exogenous geological variation in the location of subsurface oil in the
Southern United States. I find that oil abundant counties are highly
specialized: for many decades their mining sector was almost as large as their
entire manufacturing sector. During the 1940s and 1950s, oil abundant counties
enjoyed per capita income that was 20-30 percent higher than other nearby
counties, and their workforce was better educated. But whereas in 1940 oil
production crowded out agriculture, over the next 50 years it caused the oil
abundant counties to develop a smaller manufacturing sector. This led to slower
accumulation of human capital in the oil abundant counties, and to a narrowing
of per capita income differentials to about 5 percentage points. Despite this
caveat, the gains from specialization were large, and specialization had little
impact on the fraction of total income spent by local government or on income
inequality.
关键词：Specialization, Growth, Human Capital, Petroleum
