Agricultural Exports and Economic Growth: A Disaggregated Analysis for Ghana

Abstract

Examining the correlation between agricultural exports and economic growth, a study was carried out in Ghana at the disaggregate level using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model with yearly time series data spanning from 1990Q1-2011Q4 to advise policy makers on the dynamics of growth. Both the long-run and the short-run results reveal that, cocoa export has a positive and significant impact on economic growth whiles the export of pineapple and banana has negative effect on economic growth even though pineapple export is not significant in both long run and short run. In addition, the study found unidirectional causality running from banana to economic growth, a bi-directional causal relationship between cocoa export and economic growth and no causality between economic development and pineapple export in Ghana. As a result, the study recommends that the performance of Ghana Export Promotion Authority and Ghana Free Zones Board should be made public in other to grab the awareness of foreign investors, and by so doing, it would provide access to global markets to Ghanaian exporters. There is also the need for the government of Ghana to bring into force structural changes which will ensure that additional values are added to them hither to their exportation.

Revisiting the effects of relevant factors on Pakistan's agricultural products export

“…Many researchers have selected agricultural export, agricultural import, and cereal crop export as dependent variables and foreign direct investment, exchange rate, and domestic investment, etc. as independent variables when using the ARDL model and time series data from different countries, including Pakistan (Ahmad et al 2017), Ghana (Baek and Koo 2009;Siaw et al 2018), India (Ohlan 2013), Zimbabwe (Muchapondwa 2008), and Ethiopia (Dube et al 2018). They have contributed a great proportion of literature with regard to middle-and lower-income countries, but there is still a missing link for Pakistan.…”

The Impact of Internet Use on Income: The Case of Rural Ghana

“…It is a critical call for Ghana as a nation to address this issue as soon as possible before it becomes unmanageable, as rural agriculture is the major backbone of food security worldwide [3][4][5][6][7]. Currently, collaborators are acknowledging the political and economic importance of the more than half of the world's population that lives in mostly unexploited rural communities.…”

Does export destination matter for the economic growth of Ghana?

“…The value increased to US$3,613,993.66 in 2006, and further to US$10,655,796.41 in 2016. For 2017and 2018, the values increased again to US$14,358,509.95 and US$17,099,588.40 respectively. This clearly shows that, on average, Ghana's export to the rest of the world has been increasing over the years.…”

“…Given the importance of exports to economic growth highlighted above, researchers have empirically delved into this phenomenon (see for instance, Tuffour, 2010;Chigusiwa et al, 2011;Aidam et al, 2014;Darkoh, 2015;Mahmoodi & Mahmoodi, 2016;Quaicoe et al, 2017;Siaw et al, 2018;Okyere & Jilu, 2020;Mensah & Okyere, 2020). However, it is important to note that these studies have focused on the effect of exports on economic growth without taking into consideration the relevance of export destination(s).…”