This thesis compares Norway, Botswana and Venezuela and their sovereign wealth funds. The first two countries are referred to as exceptions to the theory of the resource curse, which explains the phenomenon that shows that countries with a high dependence on income from the export of natural resources have a slower rate of economic, political and institutional development. On the contrary, Venezuela (although it was considered an exception in the past) is severely affected by this phenomenon and thus serves as a negative example in this thesis. The thesis focuses on state sovereign wealth funds and examines whether and under what conditions these funds have an effect on reversing the resource curse. Based on the theoretical part, five key c...