Does Oil Ownership Affect Institutions?

A large body of literature shows that oil wealth leads to poor quality of institutions. The existing literature, however, neglects the dimension of ownership. This article provides the first empirical investigation of whether ownership of oil matters for institutional quality. Using a novel database on ownership structures, it analyzes a sample of 38 oil-rich developing countries during 1984-2005. The estimation results show that ownership matters and that private ownership of oil leads to a better quality of institutions than state ownership. The results are useful for oil-rich countries in adopting appropriate policies to maximize the benefits of oil to the nation.