The Friday Podcast: Too Much Lithium Is Depressing
Afghanistan, seen here, may be home to one of the world's biggest lithium deposits. That's probably a bad thing. Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
You remember the natural resource curse. It's the idea that being rich in natural resources -- oil, gold, lithium, whatever -- can actually harm a country's economic development.
On today's Planet Money, we talk to a couple economists who are pushing what sounds like a simple way to break the curse: Give the money directly to the people.
They recently took the idea on a road show to Africa, to try to convince a couple oil-rich countries to give it a try. It didn't go so well.
For more, read our post from this morning.
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