In this paper the impact of exports and imports on the economic growth of Somalia over the period 1970-1991 was investigated. The study applied econometric methods such as Ordinary Least Squares technique. The Granger Causality and Johansen Co-integration tests were also used for analysing the long term association. By using Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) and Phillip-Perron (PP) stationarity test, the variables proved to be integrated of the order one 1(1) at first difference. Johansen test of co-integration was used to determine if there is a long run association in the variables. To determine the direction of causality among the variables, both in the long and short run, the Pair-wise Granger Causality test was carried out. It was found that economic growth does not Granger Cause Export but was found hat export Granger Cause GDP. So this implies that there is unidirectional causality between exports and economic growth. Also there is bidirectional Granger Causality between import and export. The results show that economic growth in Somalia requires export-led growth strategy as well as export led import. Imports and exports are thus seen as the source of economic growth in Somalia.

This paper aims to assess the effects of foreign debt and foreign aid on economic growth in Somalia from 1970 to 2014. The ordinary least squares (OLS) method was used and basic model assumption tests were also employed. We used the Augmented Dickey−Fuller (ADF) and Philip-Perron (PP) tests for the unit root and the Johansen cointegration test to determine the long-run relationship between the variables. The results of the study show that, in Somalia, foreign debt has an insignificant effect on economic growth, while the foreign aid has positive significant effect on economic growth. The results also indicate that the cointegration method confirms the incidence of long-run association among the variables. There is little research regarding the exact relationship between increasing foreign debt and foreign aid on economic growth in Somalia. This study is also different from previous studies as we used ADF and PP tests for the unit root and the Johansen cointegration test for the long-run relationship between the variables. Additionally, the study used multivariate techniques. The paper concludes that foreign aid is essential in economic growth and several policy implications are proposed.

Somalia has suffered enormous instability and civil war in the last three decades, which have impacted the population as well as the economy of the country. Although Somalia is the one of the most impoverished and corrupt nations in the world, it has registered small growth in recent years. The people of Somalia are entrepreneurial by nature and have established business firms both outside and inside the country. This paper aims to investigate empirically the causal relationships between economic growth and variables such as exports (X), foreign aid (FA), government expenditure (GE), gross capital formation (GCF), and foreign direct investment (FDI). The unit root of the data was tested for all variables, and the variables were non-stationary in the level model but stationary in the first-difference model. The null hypothesis of no co-integration was rejected, and the tests revealed a causal relationship among the variables in the study. Four of the six explanatory variables were not statistically significant. Only the variables of GCF and FDI were statistically significant for economic growth.