Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T11:00:35.340Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An assessment of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) using the Bayesian Corruption Indicator

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2021

Paul Fenton Villar Open the ORCID record for Paul Fenton Villar [Opens in a new window]
Paul Fenton Villar*
Affiliation:
School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK
*
Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Advocated across the international community for more than 15 years, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is now widely recognised as a hallmark anti-corruption scheme in the extractive sector. This study presents an assessment of the relationship between EITI membership and countries’ progress in tackling corruption. It provides the first study that looks at this issue using a ‘state-of-the-art’ indicator called the Bayesian Corruption Indicator. It also introduces an innovative estimation strategy combining entropy balancing with a difference-in-difference framework to address the baseline inequalities that exist between member and non-member countries. Contrary to the findings of many leading studies, this analysis finds corruption scores have improved significantly among EITI member countries. In particular, the evidence is strongest when we examine a sub-group of EITI members designated fully compliant with the initiative's transparency standards.

Keywords

corruptionEITIextractive industriesnatural resource managementtransparency

JEL classification

O13: Agriculture • Natural Resources • Energy • Environment • Other Primary Products Q32: Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development D73: Bureaucracy • Administrative Processes in Public Organizations • Corruption Q38: Government Policy
Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 27 , Issue 5 , October 2022 , pp. 414 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

The online version of this article has been updated since original publication. A notice detailing the changes has also been published at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355770X21000395

References

Bebbington, A, Arond, E and Dammert, JL (2017) Explaining diverse national responses to the extractive industries transparency initiative in the Andes: what sort of politics matters? The Extractive Industries and Society 4, 833–841.10.1016/j.exis.2016.11.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bickham, E (2009) The business case for the EITI. In Eads, C, Mitchell, P and Paris, F (eds). Advancing the EITI in the Mining Sector: A Consultation for Stakeholders. Oslo, Norway: The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, pp. 7–9.Google Scholar
Bickham, E (2015) Mining and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative: a review of international and in-country experiences of the EITI from the perspective of supporting mining companies. Available at https://eiti.org/sites/default/files/migrated_files/eiti_review_report_v10_-_final.pdf.Google Scholar
Charron, N (2016) Do corruption measures have a perception problem? Assessing the relationship between experiences and perceptions of corruption among citizens and experts. European Political Science Review 8, 147–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J (1988) Statistical Power for the Behavioral Sciences, 2nd Edn, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Collier, P (2017) The institutional and psychological foundations of natural resource policies. The Journal of Development Studies 53, 217–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corrigan, C (2014) Breaking the resource curse: transparency in the natural resource sector and the extractive industries transparency initiative. Resources Policy 41, 17–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duvendack, M and Palmer-Jones, P (2012) High noon for microfinance impact evaluations: re-investigating the evidence from Bangladesh. Journal of Development Studies 48, 1864–1880.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
EITI (2020) Homepage Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Available at https://eiti.org/.Google Scholar
Fenton Villar, P (2020) The extractive industries transparency initiative (EITI) and trust in politicians. Resources Policy 68, 101713.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fenton Villar, P (2021) The extractive industries transparency initiative (EITI) and the technical reforms model: insights from the global performance assessments literature. Extractive Industries and Society 8, 100963.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fenton Villar, P and Papyrakis, E (2017) Evaluating the impact of the extractive industries transparency initiative (EITI) on corruption in Zambia. Extractive Industries and Society 4, 795–805.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fenton Villar, P and Waddington, H (2019) Within study comparisons and risk of bias in international development: systematic review and critical appraisal. Campbell Systematic Reviews 15, e1027.Google Scholar
Gillies, H and Heuty, A (2011) Does transparency work? The challenges of measurement and effectiveness in resource-rich countries. Yale Journal of International Affairs 6, 25–42.Google Scholar
Glazerman, S, Levy, DM and Myers, D (2003) Nonexperimental versus experimental estimates of earnings impacts. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 589, 63–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hainmueller, J (2012) Entropy balancing for causal effects: a multivariate reweighting method to produce balanced samples in observational studies. Political Analysis 20, 25–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horan, D (2013) How to ensure transparency in land deals. Devex. Available at https://www.devex.com/news/how-to-ensure-transparency-in-land-deals-81859.Google Scholar
Jaciw, AP (2016) Assessing the accuracy of generalized inferences from comparison group studies using a within-study comparison approach. Evaluation Review 40, 199–240.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kasekende, E, Abuka, C and Sarr, M (2016) Extractive industries and corruption: investigating the effectiveness of EITI as a scrutiny mechanism. Resources Policy 48, 117–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufmann, D, Kraay, A and Mastruzzi, M (2006) Measuring Corruption: Myths and Realities. Washington, DC: The World Bank.Google Scholar
King, G and Nielsen, R (2019) Why propensity scores should not be used for matching. Political Analysis 27, 435–454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
López-Cazar, I, Papyrakis, E and Pellegrini, L (2021) The extractive industries transparency initiative (EITI) and corruption in Latin America: evidence from Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago. Resources Policy 70, 101907.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lujala, P (2018) An analysis of the extractive industries transparency initiative implementation process. World Development 107, 358–381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maconachie, R, Srinivasan, R and Menzie, N (2015) Responding to the Challenge of Fragility and Security in West Africa: Natural Resources, Extractive Industry Investment, and Social Conflict. Washington, DC: The World Bank.Google Scholar
Matschinger, H, Heider, D and König, H (2020) A comparison of matching and weighting methods for causal inference based on routine health insurance data, or: what to do if an RCT is impossible. Gesundheitswesen 82, 139–150.Google Scholar
McDevitt, A (2017) Transparency and Accountability Initiatives in the Extractives Sector (K4D Helpdesk Report). Sussex: Institute of Development Studies.Google Scholar
OECD (2014) OECD Foreign Bribery Report: An Analysis of the Crime of Bribery of Foreign Public Officials. Paris, France: OECD Publishing. Available online at https://www.oecd.org/corruption/oecd-foreign-bribery-report-9789264226616-en.htm.Google Scholar
Öge, K (2016) Which transparency matters? Compliance with anti-corruption efforts in extractive industries. Resources Policy 49, 41–50.Google Scholar
Ölcer, D (2009) Extracting the maximum from EITI. OECD Development Centre Working Paper No. 276.Google Scholar
Papyrakis, E, Rieger, M and Gilberthorpe, E (2017) Corruption and the extractive industries transparency initiative. The Journal of Development Studies 53, 295–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitlik, H, Frank, B and Firchow, M (2010) The demand for transparency: an empirical note. The Review of International Organizations 5, 177–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reinfeldt, F (2018) EITI as an ‘entry point’ for in-depth reforms in Ukraine. Available at https://eiti.org/news/eiti-as-entry-point-for-indepth-reforms-in-ukraine.Google Scholar
Rosenbaum, PR (2002) Observational Studies. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rustad, S, Le Billion, P and Lujala, P (2017) Has the extractive industries transparency initiative been a success? Identifying and evaluating EITI goals. Resources Policy 51, 151–162.10.1016/j.resourpol.2016.12.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Short, C (2014) Clare Short's speech from Beyond extractive sector transparency: driving prosperity and stability through good governance. Available at https://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/clare-short-speech.Google Scholar
Soriano, D, Ben-Michael, E, Bickel, P, Feller, A and Pimentel, S (2021) Interpretable sensitivity analysis for balancing weights. Working Paper, arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.13218.Google Scholar
Sovacool, B (2020) Is sunshine the best disinfectant? Evaluating the global effectiveness of the extractive industries transparency initiative (EITI). The Extractive Industries and Society 7, 1451–1471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sovacool, B, Walter, G, Van De Graaf, T and Andrews, N (2016) Energy governance, transnational rules, and the resource curse: exploring the effectiveness of the extractive industries transparency initative (EITI). World Development 83, 179–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Standaert, S (2015) Divining the level of corruption: a Bayesian state-space approach. Journal of Comparative Economics 43, 782–803.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vadlamannati, KC and De Soysa, I (2016) Do resource-wealthy rulers adopt transparency-promoting laws? An empirical analysis. International Studies Quarterly 60, 457–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Alstine, J (2017) Critical reflections on 15 years of the extractive industries transparency initiative (EITI). The Extractive Industries and Society 4, 766–770.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Klencke, H (2016) Transparency summit in the run-up to German EITI candidacy. Available at https://english.bdi.eu/article/news/transparency-summit-in-the-run-up-to-german-eiti-candidacy.Google Scholar
Wang, C (2019) The failure of the balanced condition in the natural experiment design (PhD thesis). The Australian National University, Canberra.Google Scholar
Wilson, M (2014) Is transparency really a panacea? Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 107, 216–217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: PDF

Fenton Villar supplementary material

Fenton Villar supplementary material

Download Fenton Villar supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 249.1 KB