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I present a theory explaining why less technologically advanced countries could be more vulnerable to the Dutch disease. In a bilateral trade model with monopolistic competition and increasing returns to scale, the extent of the crowding-out in the tradable sector depends positively on an interaction between the amount of revenues from natural resources’ exports and the productivity gap vis-à-vis the trade partners. With learning-by-doing, the mechanism is self-reinforcing leading to a productivity divergence pattern. The predictions of the model are consistent with cross-country empirical evidence.