A Time Series Analysis of the Relationship between Agriculture and Economic Growth in Southeast Asia from 1960-2018

East Asia has experienced dramatic economic growth from the latter half of the 20th century to the present day. Some economists attribute this growth to a series of pre-industrial agricultural reforms implemented by Northeast Asian countries; however, the countries of Southeast Asia have not implemented these policies to the same degree, and thus have not experienced as drastic of an economic transformation. In this study, we examine the long-run relationship between agriculture and economic growth from 1960-2018 in the four Southeast Asian countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand using the time series technique of cointegration. In applying time series analysis, the issue of spurious regression due to nonstationary variables arises. To test for nonstationarity, we employ the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test. We then utilize two methodologies, Engle-Granger and Johansen, to test for cointegration. The results of the two cointegration methodologies show that countries in Southeast Asia have not used agriculture as a driver of growth to the same degree as countries in Northeast Asia