Dr. Sami H. Al-Saadi, the Dean of College of Industrial Management for Oil and Gas, participated in a discussing of a master thesis in Wasit University on (the effect of oil price fluctuations in Iraq for the period 2009-2015) for Sajjad Shaker Ali, a postgraduate student at College of management and Economics / Wasit University. The thesis indicated that Iraqi economy depends in financing its development programmes on one resource, which is oil. This resource closely linked to external factors and fluctuations in the major global economies. Therefore, it directly reflected on the actual performance of Iraqi economy.
The thesis aimed to know the extent to which Iraqi economic activity related to and affected fluctuations in global oil prices through its reflection on some economic variables (GDP, unemployment and inflation rates). The thesis has reached several conclusions, including that The GDP is driven by fluctuations in world oil prices. That reflected on the rate Iraqi economic growth, as well as a positive relationship between the price of oil and the gross domestic product. In addition, the existence of an inverse relationship between the price of oil and unemployment, and the existence of a direct, but non-significant, relationship between oil price and inflation rates due to the monetary policy of Central Bank of Iraq.
