The faltering growth model in Morocco: Descriptive research (1960-2020)

Abstract

A slowing trend in the pace of growth, persistent mass unemployment, low productivity gains, competitiveness limited to certain sectors, etc. are all indicators that illustrate the obsolescence of the Moroccan growth model. Nearly seven decades after independence, growth in Morocco remains even less reassuring, unstable and volatile, highly correlated with climatic variability, and generating budget and trade deficits. Certainly, the achievements are numerous, but the bottlenecks are even more so. This observation leads us to question the growth model(s) adopted since independence if we really have any. The objective of this paper is to study the characteristics of economic growth in Morocco, from independence to 2020, based on data from the World Bank, the High Commission for Planning (HCP), the foreign exchange office, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, etc. The objective is to identify the configuration of the Moroccan growth model, as well as to highlight the obstacles that hinder the emergence of our economy. After having exposed a literature review of the various models of economic growth, we described the profile of the economic growth in Morocco since the sixties to two thousand and twenty, and this by the analysis of the various plans adopted by the public authorities. This analysis allowed us to identify the three growth models that Morocco adopted: a first Moroccan one at the beginning, aiming at the Moroccanisation of the economy, then a second one qualified as anti-social in the eighties and finally a third one called platform or FDI model at the beginning of the two thousand years. To finish our study by emphasizing the signs of breathlessness of our growth model.

JEL Classification: F43, O47.

Paper type : Empirical research