Asymmetrical effect of oil and gas resource rent on economic growth: Empirical evidence from Ghana

We investigate the asymmetric effect of oil and gas resource rent on economic growth of Ghana for the period 2010 to 2019, dwelling on the hypothesis that natural resources extraction has double-edge effect on economic growth. Using Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) model as estimation strategy, we find that oil and gas resource rent affect economic growth asymmetrically. Specifically, our NARDL estimates suggest that oil resource rent promotes economic growth significantly, providing empirical evidence in support of the resource blessing hypothesis. However, gas resource rent exerts a significant adverse effect on economic growth, providing empirical evidence to support the resource curse hypothesis. Our findings point to the need for policies that promote the expansion of oil resources firms than gas resource firms in the short run while long term policies should target setting up both oil and gas resource firms in developing countries, especially countries with similar socioeconomic and demographic setting like Ghana. Finally, government and monetary authorities should promote policies that attract foreign direct investment inflow in Ghana while taming inflation and lending rate towards growth enhancing targets.