The subject of this paper is the role of a Dutch disease and policy mismanagement in Venezuela’s economic crisis. Our research questions are (1) whether resource curse or Dutch disease are relevant notions in the case of the Venezuela, and, if indeed they are, how and why they contributed to the country’s fall into the current crisis, also (2) whether fiscal and export policies by the Chávez and Maduro administrations are responsible for the quick escalation of the economic crisis after the 2014-16 supply side price shock in the oil industry. Using data and the theory of resource dependence, this paper attempts to test these hypotheses on a quasi-case study of Venezuela’s history of economic policies from the 2000s to today. The hypothesis of a natural resource curse being present seems to be proved, and the paper illustrates that the current socioeconomic crisis is due to much more complex phenomena than one simple case of Dutch disease.
