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People queue up for soup and bread at relief tents in the aftermath of the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889. In economics, scarcity "refers to the basic fact of life that there exists only a finite amount of human and nonhuman resources which the best technical knowledge is capable of using to produce only limited maximum amounts of each economic good."
The resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty or the poverty paradox, is the hypothesis that countries with an abundance of natural resources (such as fossil fuels and certain minerals) have lower economic growth, lower rates of democracy, or poorer development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. [1]
Most important source of revenue: land, then scarce resources, then merchandise; Political economy—Most varied and easiest “The economy of the city” Truly the economy of the city; Economy at a smaller level; Sources of revenue involve merchandise, scarce resources, and taxes; Personal economy— Least important, quite varied
Experts use it when evaluating water scarcity. This metric can describe the total available water resources each country contains. This total available water resource gives an idea of whether a country tend to experience physical water scarcity. [32] This metric has a drawback because it is an average.
Thomas Robert Malthus, after whom Malthusianism is named. Malthusianism is a theory that population growth is potentially exponential, according to the Malthusian growth model, while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population decline.
Kenya, a country of 50 million population, struggles with a staggering population growth rate of 2.28% per year. [65] This high population growth rate pushes Kenya's natural resources to the brink of total depletion. 32% of the population don't have access to improved water sources whereas 48% cannot access basic sanitation systems. [66]
Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of water-stressed countries of any other place on the planet and of an estimated 800 million people who live in Africa, 300 million live in a water stressed environment. [5] In 2012, it was estimated that by 2030, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will be living in areas of high water stress. [5]
Natural resources can be a substantial part of a country's wealth; [7] however, a sudden inflow of money caused by a resource extraction boom can create social problems including inflation harming other industries ("Dutch disease") and corruption, leading to inequality and underdevelopment, this is known as the "resource curse".