Bauxite mining and economic growth in Guinea over the period 1986–2020: empirical evidence from ARDL and NARDL approaches

Given its tremendous natural resources, on the one hand, and its poor economic performance, on the other hand, the role of mining resources in the Guinean economy is often seen as a paradox. Guinea is one of the world’s major bauxite producers for several decades. Based on this fact, this study aims to investigate the relationship between bauxite mining and economic growth in Guinea. We address this issue using both autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) models on annual data from Guinea over the period 1986–2020. Our results reveal that bauxite production has a positive impact on economic performance in Guinea. More precisely, the results indicate that, overall, bauxite production has a positive impact on both GDP and GDP per capita both in the short and long run. However, overall, this impact is statistically significant only in the short run.