Natural resources as wealth in general and oil and natural gas in particular can have a potentially beneficial impact on the economic prosperity. However, economic experience implies that many of the major oil exporting countries are facing instability in economic growth, Dutch Disease, corruption and under- development. Owing to the fact that natural resources can play a vital role in development, the present study tries to investigate the econometrics relationship between export of natural resources (as a proxy for abundance) and governance indicators (as alternative variables for institutional development) in selected oil-exporting and OECD countries through the application of Generalized Moment of Method (GMM), for the period lasting from 1996 to 2011. Findings of the study revealed that the strong and statistically significant evidence confirms the negative impact of the export of natural resources on the governance index, quality of regulations, rule of law and control of corruption in the selected OPEC’s member countries. Nevertheless, such a negative impact does not have any statistically significant strength in developed countries. This is due to the improvement made in the surveillance, technical and executive mechanisms of the institutions in the selected OECD countries. It seems that the enormous incomes accrued from the export of natural resources in the oil producing countries in question will induce a decrease in transparency and accountability, instability and frequent changes in economic policies, extension of rent-seeking, corruption and authoritarianism.

Keywords: Natural Resources, Governance, Developed and Oil Countries, Resources Curse, GMM

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