What does it mean?
In economics, the Dutch disease is the apparent relationship between the increase in the exploitation of natural resources and the decline in the manufacturing sector (as defined by Wikipedia). Generally, an increase in export revenues from natural resources will strengthen the country’s currency resulting in a decrease in the attractiveness of other non-energy industry exports. In other terms, it is the phenomenon whereby an increase in commodity exports following a resource boom drives up the value of a country’s currency resulting in a decline in the country’s overall industrial and manufacturing sector.
Who said it first?
The term was coined by The Economist in 1977 to describe the decline of the manufacturing sector in the Netherlands after the discovery of a large natural gas field in 1959:
‘[…] in the words of Lord Kahn [1905-1989], ‘when the flow of North Sea oil and gas begins to diminish, about the turn of the [21st] century, our island will become desolate.’ Any disease which threatens that kind of apocalypse deserves close attention.’ ‘The Dutch Disease,’ The Economist, November 26, 1977: pp-82-83.