Determinants of Government Size in Oil Exporting Countries With Emphasis on Institutional-Political and Governance Factors: Case Study of OPEC Countries

The aim of this study is the investigation of determinants of size of government in OPEC countries with emphasis on demographic, political-institutional and governance variables. Using a panel data set for 12 OPEC countries during 1996-2014, our findings show that demographic, political-institutional and governance variables influence significantly the size of government in OPEC countries. The political institutional variables such as number of parliamentary seats held by the government and nature of the political system and governance variables such as corruption and government effectiveness are found to have significant effect on the size of government. The results demonstrate that the size of government is larger in autocratic governments compared to democratic ones. The study also finds that corruption significantly impacts size of government.