Natural Resource Rents and Corruption in OPEC Countries: a Panel Data Approach

Today, the abundance of natural resources and corruption are important economic issues, especially in developing countries. In this study, using pooled Ordinary Least Squares and panel data approaches, the relationship between these two factors in OPEC countries is estimated during 2003-2010. Along with the oil and mineral rents (as a measure of natural resource abundance), other control variables such as per capita income, degree of openness and democracy are applied. The results show that the oil and mineral rents have significant and positive effect on the corruption level. This relationship, using other measures instead of the oil rents, is re-confirmed. Per capita income and openness also have significant negative effects on the corruption level, and there is no evidence that improving democracy reduces the corruption level, although it moderates the negative effect of natural resources on the corruption