Corruption and Economic Growth in GCC Countries

The results of the study suggested that corruption and GDP growth are not significantly associated, or, in the case of the GCC countries, might be positive associated, thus contradicting some earlier findings about the relationship between corruption and economic growth (Mauro, 1995; Meon & Sekkat, 2005; Mo, 2001). These results are, however, subject to the numerous limitations of the study. To begin with, because the GCC countries were the focus of the research, corruption data could only be drawn since 2003; that was the first year in which TI (2014) presented corruption data for the GCC countries. It is possible that the relation between corruption and economic growth become apparent over a longer timespan than the one utilized in this study. Second, there could be time effects in the relationship between corruption and GDP growth that were not considered in this study. For example, corruption might have lagged GDP by two or more years, whereas the lag in the study was for only one year.