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An analysis of the effects of financial liberalisation on capital formation and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa

This thesis empirically investigates the effects of two main financial liberalisation policies namely interest rate liberalisation and capital market liberalisation on capital formation and economic growth in ten Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1970 to 2014. The empirical analysis employs revised time series and panel estimation techniques. The time series methodology allows for structural breaks in the multiple regression analysis, unit root tests, cointegration tests as well as Granger causality tests. The panel data methodology employs both fixed effects and random effects estimation techniques. A major novelty of this thesis is that it incorporates the so-called Mundlak procedure in the panel data methodology that enables the decomposition of the effects of each of the two financial liberalisation policies on capital formation and growth into transitory effects and permanent effects. Overall, the time series results provide evidence of mixed effects. Although, interest rate liberalisation and capital market liberalisation have significant positive short run effects on capital formation and economic growth in majority of the countries, there is evidence that the long run effects of both liberalisation policies are insignificant. The Mundlak decomposition provides evidence that the transitory effect of interest rate liberalisation is to boost capital formation and economic growth, and that capital market liberalisation tends to be insignificant to capital formation and growth in the short run. The Mundlak decomposition also provides evidence that both interest rate liberalisation and capital market liberalisation have a permanent effect on economic growth, but the permanent effect of both liberalisation policies on capital formation is insignificant. On the balance of evidence, there is an indication that the introduction of both financial liberalisation policies may not be as beneficial as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund claim and may not be a safe road to capital formation and growth, at least in the Sub-Saharan African region.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:752670
Date January 2018
CreatorsVanni, Eguolo May
ContributorsTheodossiou, Ioannis ; McCausland, David
PublisherUniversity of Aberdeen
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=237659

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