The Impact of Trade on the Economic Growth of The Gambia

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Trade and Distribution, grade: 76.0, University of The Gambia (University of the Gambia), course: Economics, language: English, abstract: The study examined the general impact of trade on economic growth in the Gambia from 1965 to 2016. Accordingly we have done three analyses in order to get appropriate answers to our research problems. We performed some econometric methods such as Augmented Dickey Fuller test, Johansen co-integration test and vector error correction model. The findings of the stationery test shows the present of unit root. The OLS regression results shows that import, interest rate, real effective exchange rate, and inflation are positively correlated with GDP, while export is negatively correlated with GDP. The result shows that GDP lag, import, and real effective exchange rate can not influence economic growth while export, interest rate, and inflation can highly influence economic growth of the Gambia, even though export negatively influence economic of the Gambia. This positive relationship suggests that the economy of the Gambia can potentially be expanded by means of trade, while the negative relationship means that it has no bearing on the economic growth of the Gambia, From the overall analysis, it is revealed that the variables included in the model have a 50% influence on economic growth while the remaining 50% constitute variables not included in the model. This implies that (a) Trade has an impact on economic growth of the Gambia. (b) Trade is a robust determinant of economic growth in the Gambia even though that there is still room for research on the impact of trade on economic growth in the Gambia. (c) The effect of trade and extent of the market on growth is a recurring issue in the world of economics. This study recommends that if the Gambia economic growth is to be increased, then policymakers should came up with strategies that encourage more imports, reduce interest rate, and maintain a stable exchange rate and inflation rate in the Gambia. The negative sign of export means policymakers should pay less attention to export.