An investigation into the impact of total revenue and internal public debt on Iraqi economic growth from 2004 to 2021

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of internal public debt and total revenue on economic growth in Iraq between 2004 and 2021. It aims to demonstrate the level of effectiveness of the independent variables on the gross domestic product as Iraq’s economic situation has been going through many difficulties during the mentioned period. After investigating the stability level of the data via unit root test and checking the long-run relationship between the variables, the autoregressive distributed lag ARDL model has been implemented. The results illustrate that total revenue, including oil and non-oil sources, contributed significantly and positively to boosting economic growth. However, internal public debt negatively influenced it; this is because the majority of the borrowed money by the government is used in the field of consumption rather than investment.