As undiversified commodity exporters, GCC economies are prone to pro-cyclical systemic risk in the financial system. During periods of high hydrocarbon prices, favorable economic prospects make the financial sector keen to lend, leading to higher domestic credit growth and easier access to...

The constraints that external linkages impose on domestic policy choices in Saudi Arabia have continuously evolved over the past four decades. This paper argues that two major ongoing developments in particular have affected and will continue to affect policy trade-offs. First, growing oil needs...

Cluster policy has become a method of choice for policymakers in many countries. Promoting strong localized industries is an appealing perspective for practitioners, as it can be seen as a way to anchor economic activity in regions in an era of globalization. If cluster policy is successful, it...

We investigate the effect of financial development on economic growth in the context of Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich economy. In doing so, we distinguish between the effects of financial development on the oil and non-oil sectors of the economy. Using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL)...

This chapter reviews developments in GDP over the past several decades. The analysis shows that accumulation of labor and capital explains the bulk of overall output growth since 1990, with changes in total factor productivity playing only a minor role. Moreover, while increases in total factor...

This staff report on Saudi Arabia’s 2013 Article IV Consultation discusses economic policies and development. As the largest crude oil exporter, and the only producer with significant spare capacity, Saudi Arabia plays a systemic and stabilizing role in the global oil market. In 2011,...

Abstract: The economies of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are heavily reliant on oil. Greater economic diversification would reduce their exposure to volatility and uncertainty in the global oil market, help create jobs in the private sector, increase productivity and...

Our goal in this paper is to explore the validity of Wagner’s Law in Saudi Arabia during the period (1970-2012) for real oil GDP and Non-oil GDP. Wagner’s Law investigated that fundamental economic growth is validity to the public sector growth. In the previous studies have been tested the...

This study investigates the causality relationship between defence expenditures and Non Oil economic growth in Saudi Arabia over the period 1970-2012. Using Unit root tests, Johansen’s co-integration test and Granger Causality test. In this paper we found the existence of bi-directional...