Relationship Between Crude Oil Prices And Economic Growth In Selected OPEC Countries

The aim of this study is to examine the degree of interdependence between oil prices and economic activity growth for four major countries (United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela) in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) over the period from 3 September 2000 to 3 December 2010. We propose the frequency approach of Priestley and Tong (1973), which is the evolutionary co-spectral analysis. This method offers a time-varying dynamic correlation measure for different horizons, short-run and medium-run. To complete our study by analyzing long-run dependence, we use the cointegration procedure developed by Engle and Granger (1987). We show that oil price shocks in periods during period of fluctuations in the global business cycle and/or financial turmoil affect the relationship between oil and economic growth in OPEC countries