Paper short abstract:

This paper reports results from a randomized survey experiment of 3004 household members in Tanzania that sheds light on some possible micro-level mechanisms underlying the resource curse in contexts of weak institutions.

Paper long abstract:

Resource rich countries with weak institutions face the danger of a "resource curse", but few studies have empirically investigated the micro-level mechanisms that explain how resource wealth may hamper development. This paper reports results from a randomized survey experiment of 3004 household members in Tanzania that sheds light on some possible micro-level mechanisms underlying the resource curse in contexts of weak institutions. We use informational videos to generate exogenous variation in citizens' expectations about future gas revenues. Our preliminary analysis indicates that expectations about future gas revenues causally increase expected corruption, which in turn is likely to increase individual propensity to engage in corruption. Furthermore, we find the effect of increased expectations to be driven by older respondents. From the 1990s, the Tanzanian economy experienced a mineral resource boom, but the general public benefited little and corruption increased. Thus, a possible interpretation of this finding is that older respondents are affected by their previous experiences with natural resource revenues. Initiatives to strengthen trust among older Tanzanians in the could therefore be important part of the Government's petroleum policy in managing the resource curse. We find no effect of expectations about future gas revenues on attitudes toward paying taxes.