DZIEDZOAVE-WISDOM/ghana-gdp-inflation

# Ghana: GDP Growth vs. Inflation, 1970–2024 A reproducible analysis of Ghana's annual real GDP growth and consumer-price inflation over five and a half decades, plotted on a shared timeline and read against the macroeconomic and policy events that drove the major turning points. ## Data | Series | Indicator code | Unit | Period | |---|---|---|---| | GDP growth (annual) | `NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG` | % | 1970–2024 | | Inflation, consumer prices (annual) | `FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG` | % | 1970–2024 | **Source:** World Bank, World Development Indicators (WDI). Real GDP is in constant 2015 US-dollar prices. The tidy series used by the script lives in `data/ghana_gdp_inflation_1970_2024.csv`; the original World Bank export (with metadata) is kept in `data/source_world_bank_wdi.xlsx`. ## What the data shows Over the full sample, growth averaged about **3.9%** a year (σ ≈ 4.3) and inflation averaged about **29%** (σ ≈ 27) — an unusually high and volatile inflation mean for a half-century, concentrated in the pre-reform decades. The broad pattern is one of **negative co-movement**: the worst growth collapses line up with the highest inflation, consistent with supply shocks and fiscal-monetary instability hitting output and the price level together. ### 1970–1983 — Instability and the inflationary spiral This is the most turbulent stretch in the series. Growth swung violently and inflation ratcheted from single digits into triple digits. - **1975 (growth −12.4%, the all-time trough):** the 1973–74 oil shock, drought, and a collapse in cocoa export earnings hit an economy already strained by political instability and a string of coups. - **1977 (inflation ~116%):** chronic fiscal deficits financed by money creation — textbook **fiscal dominance** — combined with shortages and a heavily overvalued cedi fed a hyper-inflationary environment. - **1981–1983 (inflation ~117% then ~123%, the inflation peak):** the crisis bottomed out. Growth fell to **−6.9% in 1982**, the pre-reform trough …