Can the resource curse be avoided? An empirical examination of the nexus between crude oil price and economic growth

This paper revisits the resource curse hypothesis by examining the nexus between crude oil price and economic growth for a panel of 32 Sub-Saharan Africa countries from 1980 to 2017. Employing the panel vector autoregression (VAR) estimation technique, we found evidence of a significant positive effect of crude oil price on economic growth both in the short run and long run. However, after splitting the panel into net oil exporters and importers, the results for net oil importers remain consistent with those obtained for the whole panel, unlike those for net oil exporters revealing a positive and negative effect of crude oil price on economic growth in the short-run and long-run periods, respectively. This confirms the resource curse hypothesis for oil-exporting countries under consideration. Moreover, we found evidence of bidirectional causality between crude oil price and real GDP. Consequently, to boost economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, various governments should encourage economic diversification, increase investments in human capital in view of enhancing the development of the oil sector by ensuring an efficient management of oil revenues, as well as intensifying the fight against corruption. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43546-021-00179-x.