Oil Rents, Corruption, and State Stability - Evidence From Panel Data Regressions

December 1, 2009

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Oil Rents, Corruption, and State Stability - Evidence From Panel Data Regressions, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2009) accessed December 22, 2024

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

We examine the effects of oil rents on corruption and state stability exploiting the exogenous within-country variation of a new measure of oil rents for a panel of 31 oil-exporting countries during the period 1992 to 2005. We find that an increase in oil rents significantly increases corruption, significantly deteriorates political rights while at the same time leading to a significant improvement in civil liberties. We argue that these findings can be explained by the political elite having an incentive to extend civil liberties but reduce political rights in the presence of oil windfalls to evade redistribution and conflict. We support our argument documenting that there is a significant effect of oil rents on corruption in countries with a high share of state participation in oil production while no such link exists in countries where state participation in oil production is low.

Subject: Corruption, Natural resources, Oil, Oil exports, Oil prices

Keywords: Country, Effect, Oil rent, Rent, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

28
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2009/267
Stock No:

WPIEA2009267
ISBN:

9781451874129
ISSN:

1018-5941

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