The Behavior of Core OPEC Members During Normal and Exceptional Periods in the World Oil Markets

The behavior of OPECchr('39')s main exporter, Saudi Arabia and OPECchr('39')s core members (Kuwait, Qatar, and UAE) are of concern to Iran and other oil importing or exporting countries. Excess oil production capacity of OPECchr('39')s core countries lets them to have different behavior in normal and exceptional periods. In this paper, we apply a modified griffin’s model to seasonal data for the 2000-2018 period to estimate production of core members using the ARDL method. Empirical results show that Qatar’s exports in the normal period are coordinated with other members but in exceptional periods (wars, sanctions,…) is not coordinated with the rest of OPEC countries. But the other OPEC  core members (Kuwait and UAE) have the same coordination in normal and exceptional periods. JEL Classification: Q41, Q47, Q49 Keywords: OPEC, Oil Market, ARDL, OPECchr('39')s core