Aggregate Import Demand Function in Mauritania: Cointegration Analysis, AL FAGHA EL MEKY

Abstract

This article examines the functional form of aggregated import demand for the case of Mauritania during the period between 1974 and 2017. The paper compares the traditional form (which considers the imported quantity of goods and services to depend on real GDP and relative price), with another supposed relatively new functional form (which assumes the real volume of aggregate imports depends on: expenditure on public consumption, expenditure on private consumption, expenditure on total investment, exports, import price and domestic price). In the empirical analysis of the global import demand function for Mauritania, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag model (ARDL) was used. The bounds test of cointegration shows the absence of cointegration between the variables of the traditional form (quantity imported, real GDP and relative price). On the other hand, the cointegration was confirmed for the variables constituting the second form (quantity imported, consumption expenditure (public and private), investment expenditure, exports and prices).