Concentration of oil sector or diversification in saudi economy: Consequences on growth sustainability

Abstract

Oil sector contributes most of macroeconomic performance in Saudi Arabia. Using a period 1970-2018, we calculate the production, exports, government revenues, investment and employment concentration indices using normalized Herfindahl Hirschman index and test the effects of concentration indices on the economic growth. We find that exports and government revenues are highly concentrated and majorly depend on the oil sector. Employment is more concentrated by public sector and production is majorly concentrated on oil sector. Investment is shown relatively lesser dependence on the oil sector with compare to exports, production and government revenues. In the long run, we find the positive effects of production and government revenue concentrations on the economic growth and negative effects of exports and employment concentrations. Moreover, we find the Granger causality from production concentration to the economic growth, from government revenue and exports concentrations to the production concentration, from investment concentration to the export concentration and from production, investment and government revenue concentrations to the employment concentration.