Financial development and natural resources for the top five gas exporters

Given the recent preoccupations of scientific environment for “resource curse” in the context of financial development, the aim of this paper is to explore more the connection between financial development and natural resources abundance/dependence in the major five gas exporters in the period 1996–2021. The panel data models based on DOLS/FMOLS approach and mean group (MG) estimator suggest that the impact of resource abundance on financial development depends on the type of indicators used to assess the financial progress, as previous studies suggested. More coal per capita and the interaction between contract intensity and total natural resources, respectively oil per capita contribute to the development of financial markets, while economic growth supports the development of financial institutions. Even if natural gas per capita is causally related to financial development, it does not exert a significant impact on it in these countries. The new international context might be an opportunity for US, Canada, China and Saudi Arabia to achieve this target.