Having natural resources and corruption: An analysis (A case study of selected OPEC)

This paper examines the relationship between the abundance of natural resources such as oil and corruption in OPEC countries using panel data and fixed effects model in the 2003-2013 peri od. Besides the oil resource abundance index of variables such as the rule of law, government effectiveness and GDP per capita is used as control variables. The regression results show that there is a negative relationship between the explanatory variables (abundance of oil resources, government effectiveness, the rule of law, and GDP per capita) and the corruption so that the increase in them, reduced corruption. Given the strong negative relationship between the rule of law and government effectiveness obtained with corruption index, The overall result of this research can be as stating that abundant oil resources itself does not give rise to corruption, but the reasons for taking other factors such as indicators of good governance.
Key words: Corruption, Rule of law, government effective ness, Natural Resource Curse, panel data model.