HOW BLUE IS SOUTH AFRICA’S OCEAN ECONOMY: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

Abstract

The green economy as an innovative strategy is directed towards the utilization of renewable energy to ensure economic growth, while the blue economy is directed towards ensuring a maximal utilization of the ocean resources and involves the green innovative strategy. This study therefore investigates the long-run and short-run estimates and the direction of causality between the blue or ocean economy and renewable resources, total fisheries production, gross domestic product, and the level of carbon dioxide emission in South Africa over the period of 1984 and 2022 by adopting the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and the Toda-Yamamoto granger causality tests. The study finds a long-run relationship between the variables. The study finds a direct and insignificant relationship between the ocean economy and renewable energy resources, the study also finds a positive and insignificant relationship at 5% between ocean economy and total fisheries and gross domestic product in both the short and long-term. The result also shows a positive and significant relationship at 5% between the blue economy and carbon dioxide emission both in the long and short terms. The study finds no causality between the blue economy and total fisheries production, gross domestic product, and renewable resources. Furthermore, the study finds unidirectional causality running from carbon dioxide emission to blue economy without feedback. Consequently, the study supports the need to embrace the ocean or marine resources to ensure inclusive growth and development in South Africa and the country may still experience blue economic growth even after adopting the conservation hypothesis.