Effects of Oil and Non-Oil Exports on the Economic Growth of Syria

This study investigated the role of oil and non-oil exports in the Syrian economic over the period 1975-2010. The ADF unit root test, Johansen cointegration test, Granger causality test, impulse response functions (IRF), and variance decomposition (VD) analysis were used in this study. The cointegration test indicates that GDP is positively and significantly related to oil and non-oil exports. The Granger causality test indicates bidirectional shortrun causality relationships between GDP, oil exports and non-oil exports. There are also bidirectional long-run causality relationship between non-oil exports and GDP, and unidirectional long-run causality relationship running from oil exports to GDP. The study result indicates that oil exports have the biggest effect on the GDP, thus we suggest encouraging non-oil export and increase its diversity.