Impact of Gas Production, Utilization and Flaring on Economic Growth: Evidence from the Republic of Congo

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the gas production, gas use and gas flaring on economic growth of the Republic of Congo during the period 2006-2019. The results of the unit root test reveal that the bulk of variables are stationary at level and therefore integrated of order zero, however, labor input which is stationary at first difference and integrated of order one. The test of Johansen cointegration shows that all time series are cointegrated and have a long-run equilibrium relationship. We also perform the Granger-causality test which proves that only gas production and gas utilization cause economic growth in our study. The OLS regressions suggest gas production impacts adversely and significantly GDP while gas utilization significantly stimulates GDP.