Achieving higher GDP growth rates in Ghana

Abstract

The study is on achieving higher GDP growth in Ghana: which sector is to lead. The main objective of this paper was to examine the contributions of the agricultural, service and industrial sectors to economic growth in Ghana. Time series data from 1966 to 2011 on all the variables of interest was obtained from the World Development Indicators 2012 series. The Ordinary Least Squares estimation technique was used for the analysis. The results showed that a 1% increase in the growth of the agricultural sector will cause GDP growth to increase by 0.452849%. Also, a 1% increase in the growth of the services sector will lead to 0.376308% increase in GDP growth. Finally, 1% increase in the growth of the industrial sector will bring 0.1827% increase in GDP growth. All the explanatory variables are statistically significant at the 5% level of significance. It is concluded that the agriculture sector contributed most to the overall growth. It is recommended that for Ghana to achieve higher GDP growth rate, she should activate/strengthen the agricultural sector to lead the growth in the Ghanaian economy