Did Iraq Cheat the United Nations? Underpricing, Bribes, and the Oil for Food Program

40 Pages Posted: 19 Apr 2005 Last revised: 12 Aug 2022

See all articles by Chang-Tai Hsieh

Chang-Tai Hsieh

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business; University of California, Berkeley - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Enrico Moretti

University of California, Berkeley - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Date Written: March 2005

Abstract

From 1997 through early 2003, the United Nations Oil for Food Program allowed Iraq to export oil in exchange for humanitarian supplies. We measure the extent to which this program was corrupted by Iraq's attempts to deliberately set the price of its oil below market prices in an effort to solicit bribes, both in the form of direct cash bribes and in the form of political favors, from the buyers of the underpriced oil. We infer the magnitude of the potential bribe by comparing the gap between the official selling price of Iraq's two crude oils (Basrah Light and Kirkuk) and the market price of several comparison crude oils during the Program to the gap observed prior to the Program. We find consistent evidence that underpricing of Basrah Light averaged $1 per barrel from 1997 through 1999 and reaches a peak (almost $3 per barrel) from May 2000 through September 2001. The estimated underpricing quickly declines after the UN introduced a retroactive pricing scheme that reduced Iraq's ability to set the price of its oil. The evidence on whether Kirkuk was underpriced is less clear. Notably, we find that episodes of underpricing of Basrah Light are associated with a decline in the share of major oil multinationals among the oil buyers, and an increase in the share of obscure individual traders. The observed underpricing of Iraqi oil suggests that Iraq generated $5 billion in rents through its strategic underpricing. Of this amount, we estimate that Iraq collected $0.7 to $2 billion in bribes (depending on Iraq's share of the rents implied by the price gap), which is roughly 1 to 3 percent of the total value of oil sales under the Program. Finally, we find little evidence that underpricing was associated with increases in the relative supply or declines in the relative demand of Iraqi oil.

Suggested Citation

Hsieh, Chang-Tai and Moretti, Enrico, Did Iraq Cheat the United Nations? Underpricing, Bribes, and the Oil for Food Program (March 2005). NBER Working Paper No. w11202, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=689383

Chang-Tai Hsieh (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business ( email )

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University of California, Berkeley - Department of Economics ( email )

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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Enrico Moretti

University of California, Berkeley - Department of Economics ( email )

549 Evans Hall #3880
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
United States

HOME PAGE: http://emlab.berkeley.edu/~moretti/

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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