by Jerome Kuseh

For a long time I have wanted to perform a study on the relationship between commodity prices and Ghana’s GDP growth rate. I do not know if I will have enough time this year to write that and also catalogue the events that led to Ghana’s economic crisis. With the latter being more important, I decided to suffice for the time being by gathering some historical data on Quandl and having some fun by plotting graphs of year end change in prices of oil, gold and cocoa against the GDP growth rate. Check out a few of them below.

Chart 1: Gold, Oil, Cocoa, GDP 1993-2014

Chart 1 above shows year end percentage changes in Brent Crude oil, Gold and Cocoa prices and Ghana’s GDP growth rate from 1993-2014.

Chart 2: Gold, Oil, Cocoa, GDP 2010-2014

Chart 2 shows year end percentage changes in Brent Crude oil, Gold and Cocoa prices and Ghana’s GDP growth rate from 2010-2014.

Can you see any superficial relationship? The second one does look like it could tell us something. In time I will look further into studying the relationship. For now this will serve to assuage my guilt for postponing the study.

Data Sources:

Gold price per ounce – Bundesbank

Brent Crude price per barrel – US Department of Energy

GDP Growth rate – World Bank

Cocoa Prices – IMF