Growth in an oil abundant economy: the case of Venezuela

Abstract

Venezuela's growth experience over the past fifty years is characterised by a high economic growth rate from 1950 to 1977 and a low economic growth rate over the 1977-2003 period. In particular, we show that the country has been in a ‘great depression’ since the late seventies. We also show that although Venezuela has an oil abundant economy, this growth experience is largely due to the evolution of its real non-oil GDP. We perform a growth accounting exercise to quantify the extent to which the growth experience in the non-oil sector is a result of physical capital accumulation, finding that non-oil sector behavior can largely be explained by the evolution of TFP. Finally, we also make some correlations to determine whether the oil sector has affected the non-oil sector, either through its capital accumulation or through its TFP. We find that the correlation between oil revenues and capital per worker or non-oil TFP is always negative.