Page 90 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.71, # 1, 2014, pp. 80-98

Energy will be used (BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2014) as it covers related historical

period. In the considered period of 1980-2012 years there were several growth trends in the

crude oil prices: 1978-1981, 1989-1990, 1999-2008, 2010-till now.

Comparison of the GDP growth periods with the oil prices growth periods reveals following:

1) 1980-1983 GDP period of high GDP (slight growth) matches a period of high oil prices

in 1980-1983. Further drop of the world oil prices is accompanied with sharp decrease of

Venezuelan GDP and long relative “stagnation”;

2) Jump of the oil prices in 1989-1990 is not responded by the jump in Venezuelan GDP,

but 1990 establishes almost a decade of stable growth.

3) Growth trend of oil prices since 2000 is followed by the growth of GDP, but in 2002

there was a significant drop of country’s GDP. The most probable reason is political instability

due to the attempt of turnover against President Hugo Chaves.

4) Since 2004 GDP of Venezuela is visibly following the growth trend of world oil prices.

According to the facts given above, it is possible to conclude that Venezuela has such a symptom

of Dutch Disease as 1) volatility of the GDP with the respect to the natural resources market prices.

Fig. 7 shows the share of industry, agriculture and services in the GDP of Venezuela from

1980 till 2010. The explanation of the plot will be as follows:

Country’s economics has 3 main sectors: agriculture, industry, services which together form

100% of GDP. Sector industry is divided into two sub-parts: “manufacturing” and “others”.

Since the data on the economic development of purely oil sector of Venezuela is not available to

author, the following method for estimation will be used. Industry, agriculture and services all

together contribute 100% of countries GDP. So, oil sector is naturally a part of industry category. At

the same time, The World Bank delivers the statistic data on manufacturing. From the definition of

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