Structure of The Gambia’GDP and Factors Responsible for Its Development

• Main Authors: Ha Sa, 何杉
• Other Authors: Jerome Geaun
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/64866917303157546423

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 農業經濟學研究所 === 98 === The research is focused on Structure of The Gambian economy. That is, the sectors‟ shares of GDP, shares of Labor, and their productivity. There is a brief introduction of The Gambia and its peculiar climatic conditions, including its main features. Motivation of the study has been explained, and its objectives. Both exogenous and endogenous factors affecting its development over the years have been examined. Special reference is given to structural adjustment programs under the recommendation of International Monetary Fund (IMF), such as the economic recovery program (ERP) which was introduced in 1985, and program for sustained development (PSD) which followed in 1990 to consolidate the gains of the (ERP) in a sustained manner. In the ensuing years, other development programs were subsequently introduced such as the millennium development program Goals (MDGs). There are quotations of development model theories of renowned development economists such as Chenery, Arthur Lewis and Rostow. Literature related to these development theories has been reviewed and their references attached. The paper explores economic structure of The Gambia along the line of Kuznets, Chenery, etc., and further proposed the present development problem of the economy. Comparison between developed (USA, Canada, and UK) and underdeveloped (The Gambia, Ghana, Senegal) countries were made also in terms of differences in their shares of GDP, shares of labor-force, and Productivity. In The Gambia case, that the GDP share of services sector is unusually large while its share of employment is unusually small, and that the shares of industry continue to be rather small while the share of agricultural employment continues to be very large, indicate the labors are attached to an unproductive sector. Such findings inspire a lot of research effort of this study. iv In order to investigate the determinants of industry employment and growth of present Gambian economy, the study used SPSS Software tool, version 16.0 to analyze the data by Linear Regression, and Causality Test. All Secondary Data collected are from IMF, FAO, and World Bank data base and are in current US Dollars, based on the price index of the year (2000=100). The profile of The Gambia and related graphs of the study are attached at the appendix. The study is concluded with sound policy recommendations to be adopted towards improving the challenges of the economy, and to map the way forward towards economic growth and sustained development.