Determinants of Food Security in the Gulf Cooperation Council: A Cointegration Approach with an Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model

Abstract

This paper examines the dynamics of the food import bill for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) during the period 1980– 2019 using a co-integration approach of the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. The study ascertains that the food market in the GCC is highly dependent on imports, which makes it vulnerable to any import disruption. The model confirms that there is a long-term relationship between the food import bill and its dynamics, with an adjustment rate of 37%, indicating that 37% of the deviations from the long-run path are corrected annually. The study demonstrates that in the long run, the food import bill was positively influenced by Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, exports, inflation, global food prices, and regional instability and negatively influenced by the local production index. Population growth has a significant impact only in the short run. The implications of the findings were discussed, and a food security framework for the GCC has been developed.