Modelling the Economic Growth in Ghana with the Solow Production Function.
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Date
2011
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Abstract
The main objective of this study was to use the Solow’s production function (Augmented Cobb-Douglas production function) as a basis to model the economic growth of Ghana during the period 1990 to 2010.
Economic growth around the world has not been equal for a long time. Some economies grow faster than others. Economists have predicted that the slower growing economies will eventually converge to the faster growing economies at some point in time. In this study, we model the economic growth of Ghana using the Solow production model and applying growth differential equations.
Starting from the estimates of the parameters from other studies, the growth model was simulated for the period 1990 to 2010, using Matlab, SPSS and Excel spreadsheet. The estimations from the model were compared with the actual figures from the Ghana Statistical Service, World Bank and MOFEP. The model provides a good approximation of the dynamics of the Ghanaian economy for the 1990 to 2010 periods, with respect to the dynamics of the real aggregate GDP growth and to the ratios of the main macroeconomic variables, like production per worker, capital-output ratio or capital per worker.
The results showed a very close relationship between the actual and calculated growth rates over the periods 1990 to 2010. The actual average growth rate over the period was 4.5% as compared to the calculated average value of 4.21%.
Finally, the correlation coefficient between the actual growth rates and the calculated was 0.298, which indicates that they are correlated, but the strength of correlation was weak.
Description
A thesis submitted to the Department of Mathematics, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Science,