The preceding chapter has highlighted some of the specificities of the region. The following chapter will show to what extent the GCC economies thereby challenge common theories of economic growth and development. The latter have resulted in a huge amount of research on the potential drivers of economic growth and development. As a result, the list of factors suspected of driving or impeding growth has grown massively over time.

For the sake of a parsimonious model, it is important to keep in mind two things: firstly, the focus on oil exporting states provides some restrictions. The theories I will adduce have to be viewed in light of their context and their underlying assumptions even if they claim to be universal. Secondly, a theoretical background for an empirical analysis which aims at investigating the conditions of non-depletable growth is needed. I am concerned with a comparative view on the statics and not so much with the dynamics of the subject. I will not dwell, therefore, on reproducing here formal growth models, their assumptions and their derivations at length. (Bretschger 1999; Barro/Sala-i-Martin 2004; Frenkel/Hemmer 1999; Zhang 2005)

The following theories will be used to select variables for an empirical model that draws on parts of several theories since no single theory has given a detailed and comprehensive explanation of non-depletable growth in oil-exporting countries so far. Many aspects of these theories will not be taken into account, either because they are not relevant for resource abundant countries, or because they cannot be operationalized in my empirical model.

In this chapter, I move from the more general theories of economic growth and development economics to theories focusing on resource-abundant countries. The following two subsections deal with growth theory and development theory. These topics cannot be easily separated, and to add confusion, both have had important implications for development policy. Many authors seem to interchange these notions. For this analysis I propose a very simple but still quite arbitrary differentiation: theories will be referred to as growth theories when they have originated from a context of developed, industrially advanced countries, even if they deal with these countries’ “undevelopment”. Theories that have been formulated with a special focus on less developed countries (LDCs) will be consequently referred to as economic development theories. They deal with “underdevelopment” in comparison with other, developed countries.