Income inequality and oil resources: Panel evidence from the United States (original) (raw)

There has been little research examining income distributional consequences from resource abundance and dependency. Using panel evidence from the United States, we nd contrasting nonmonotonic outcomes from oil abundance in comparison to oil dependency. Oil abundance mitigates inequality within U.S. states. However, the diminishing impact on inequality tends to lessen with higher levels of oil production. The opposite holds true for oil dependency. The ndings suggest that income inequality within U.S. states is more vulnerable to oil dependency.