Mexican oil booms: fugitive events

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to answer the question as to why oil booms –which historically have created great expectations– have not generated a virtuoso circle between abundance of oil resources and development. I sustain that oil booms have perpetuated a vicious circle of ever-greater dependency between oil revenues and weakness of the Mexican State. This article is structured as follows: first, a brief review of the literature on the resource curse is presented, followed by an analysis of three oil booms in Mexico. Finally, I compare how Mexico and Norway have managed their oil resources. In the conclusions I raise a prospective question: can oil resources in Mexico –a century after their discovery– contribute to sustained development and social welfare?