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Abstract
For the past two decades, Tunisia has been undertaken important structural reforms,
which call in most cases for market and trade liberalization (agricultural structural adjustment
program, GATT reforms, free trade area with the European Union). The private-led type of
growth strategy with less government intervention has culminated these last years into a
more rapid economic growth and openness.
Within this context, this paper examines the agricultural sector role into the economic
growth and its interactions with the other sectors using time-series co-integration techniques.
We use annual data from 1961 to 2005 to estimate a VAR model that includes GDP indices
of five sectors in Tunisian economy.
Empirical results from this study indicate that in the long-run all economic sectors
tend to move together (co-integrate). But, in the short-run, the agricultural sector seems to
have a limited role as a driving force for the growth of the other sectors of the economy. In
addition, growth of the agricultural output may not be conducive directly to non-agricultural
economic sector in the short-run.