Title: Agriculture - a possible lifesaver in times of crisis? A worldwide level econometric study

Authors: Codruta Mare; Cristian Mihai Dragos

Addresses: Department of Statistics – Forecasts – Mathematics, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Babes-Bolyai University, 58-60, Teodor Mihali Street, 400591 Cluj-Napoca, Romania ' Department of Statistics – Forecasts – Mathematics, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Babes-Bolyai University, 58-60, Teodor Mihali Street, 400591 Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orléans, Faculté de Droit d'Economie et de Gestion, Université d'Orléans, Rue de Blois – BP 26739, 45067 Orleans Cedex2, France

Abstract: The 2008 global financial crisis has upset the world economy, with major effects on the financial sector, industry, trade and agriculture. However, national economies have been affected in a significantly unequal manner. The objective of this study is to estimate the relationship between the importance of agriculture in a national economy and the evolution of economic growth and unemployment. The final sample is made up of 151 of countries for which complete information was available in respect to the analysed phenomenon. Data has been collected from the World Bank database. Methodology is based on spatial econometrics and OLS robust (White) regressions. The results show that the higher the weight of agriculture in the national economy, the lower the variation of economic growth and unemployment in times of crisis.

Keywords: economic growth; unemployment; global financial crisis; spatial econometrics; OLS regression.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEBR.2017.085554

International Journal of Economics and Business Research, 2017 Vol.14 No.1, pp.61 - 72

Received: 16 Aug 2016
Accepted: 01 Dec 2016
Published online: 30 Jul 2017 *

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