Gambia'da ekonomik büyüme belirlemeleri: Bir zaman seri analizi

The main objective of this study is to investigate the determinants of economic growth in the Gambia during the period 1970- 2018. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to Co-integration and Error Correction Model are applied in order to investigate the long- run and short- run relationship between the dependent variable (real GDP) and its determinants. The findings of the study shows that there is a stable long run relationship between the variables of real GDP, physical capital, human capital, export, aid, external debt and inflation. The empirical findings reveal that both physical capital and human capital are found to have a positive impact on economic growth while debt affects the growth of the economy negatively and statistically significant at 1 percent. However, the study found out that physical capital, foreign aid and inflation have statistically insignificant effect on economic growth in the long run. This study also has an important policy implication. The findings of this study indicated that economic growth can be significantly improved when the physical capital and human capital increases. Hence the government and/ or policy makers should strive to increase capital formation (investment) which is a back bone of growth and allocate adequate finance for human capital, which can help to improve on the quality of education and providing basic health services to the community. Additionally, to avoid misallocation and mismanagement of external debt problem, there should be a close monitoring and consistent debt management strategies. Key words: Economic growth, Physical capital, Human capital, Export of goods and services, Foreign aid, External debt and Inflation.