Journal of Economics and Development Studies

Credibility of Growth and Development Measures in Rentier Economies: The Case of GCC
Abbas A. Al-Mejren Ph.D.

Abstract
The six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) rely heavily on a depleting, and unstable source of income, namely crude oil and natural gas. The paper explores various imbalances resulting from such over-reliance and disputes the validity of widely used conventional measures of growth and developments for measuring growth and development in such oil based economies. The paper argues that constraints facing the GCC countries require the use of distinctive non-conventional indicators that can assess their performance towards development. Thus, it suggests some relevant indicators of development performance that are specifically practical in the case of GCC countries. It also applied a dispersion index to assess the GCC economic diversification efforts during the past four and half decades. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have achieved the best pace of success in transforming their domestic economy into more diversified ones. The paper also proposes measures associated with international indices that were introduced by world organizations and institutions. In this context, the paper presented three of these indices, the good governance index, democracy index and corruption perceptions index.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jeds.v7n4a8