IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v137y2024ics014098832400495x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Offshore finance and corruption in oil licensing

Author

Listed:
  • Marcolongo, Giovanna
  • Zambiasi, Diego

Abstract

Does the awarding of oil and gas licenses increase corruption? We answer this question by exploiting leaked data on the incorporation of shell companies and detailed information on the awarding of oil and gas licenses. Using this data, we construct a new dataset covering 119 countries over the period 1990–2014. Shell companies, by providing secrecy to their ultimate beneficiaries, are an ideal vehicle to channel bribes to officials involved in the awarding of oil licenses. We consider the incorporation of offshore entities as an indicator of corruption risk. We find that the number of new shell companies increases by 11% in the period around the awarding of an exploration license. We interpret this evidence to be a strong indicator that the award of an exploration license increases the risk of corruption. Consistent with rent-maximising behaviour, this association is stronger when the price of oil increases.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcolongo, Giovanna & Zambiasi, Diego, 2024. "Offshore finance and corruption in oil licensing," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:137:y:2024:i:c:s014098832400495x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2024.107787
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014098832400495X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2024.107787?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Oil; Extractives; Natural resources; Corruption; Tax havens; Shell companies;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • Q32 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:137:y:2024:i:c:s014098832400495x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.