scholarly journals FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (03) ◽  
pp. 2050016
Author(s):  
OBINNA FRANKLIN EZEIBEKWE

What are the economic, political, institutional, socio-cultural, and geographical determinants of financial development in developing countries? This paper uses the two-way fixed effects (with clustered standard errors) and annual panel data from 1980 to 2018 for 69 developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, East and South Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean to address this question. The principal component analysis is employed to construct a financial development index based on three financial development indicators. This study builds on the previous studies by introducing new potential determinants of financial development such as the perception of corruption, and by exploring important quadratic and interaction effects. The results show that national income, trade openness, indices of political stability and Polity2 (a democracy score), perception of corruption, the predominant religion in the countries, and geographical factors such as territorial access to the sea explain the differences in the levels of financial development across countries and regions. A rise in national income leads to a higher level of financial development and countries with a high perceived level of corruption have a lower level of financial development. There is strong evidence of threshold effects as trade openness has a diminishing marginal effect on financial development while the auxiliary growth regressions show that financial development has an increasing marginal effect on national income. Of the five regions studied, East and South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have the highest and lowest levels of financial development, respectively. Also, fuel-exporting countries, least developed countries, and landlocked countries tend to have lower levels of financial development. These results have relevant policy implications for developing countries in their continued efforts to achieve better financial development and ultimately, sustainable economic development.

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 489
Author(s):  
E. M. Ekanayake ◽  
Ranjini Thaver

The objective of this study is to investigate the nexus between financial development (FD) in economic growth (GROWTH) in developing countries. The study uses panel data from 138 developing countries during the period 1980–2018. The relationship between financial development and economic growth is investigated using four explanatory variables that are commonly used to measure the level of financial development and several other control variables, including a dummy variable representing the financial and banking crises. The sample of 138 developing countries is also classified into six geographic regions. We have carried out panel unit-root tests and panel cointegration tests before estimating the specified models using both Panel Least Squares (Panel LS) and Panel Fully Modified Least Squares (FMOLS) methods. In addition, panel Granger causality tests have been conducted to identify the direction of causality between FD and GROWTH for each of the regions. The results of the study provide evidence of a direct relationship between FD and GROWTH in developing countries. Furthermore, there is evidence of bi-directional causality running from FD to GROWTH and from GROWTH to FD in samples of Europe and Central Asia, South Asia, and all countries, but not in East Asia and Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa.


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tahera Ahmed

Child marriage is still a massive problem in many developing countries. The issue is more concentrated in countries of Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia. This paper, through literature review attempts to assess the situation, the consequences, various programmes and recommendations on the reduction of child marriage. In this article it is reinforced that, consequences of child marriage put the girls at risk of early pregnancies with life-threatening conditions. This paper suggests that each country should set up its own mid-term and long-term goals to bring about significant reduction in child marriages.


2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giampaolo Garzarelli ◽  
Yasmina Rim Limam ◽  
Stefania P.S. Rossi

Abstract Do economic variables operate through the channel of public governance to impact technical (or productive) efficiency in Sub Saharan Africa? We present different stochastic frontier models where technical efficiency is a relation between three economic variables, education, government spending, and trade openness, and three public governance variables, government effectiveness, political stability, and regulatory quality. In all cases, education operates through public governance to improve efficiency while government spending does not.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 351-362
Author(s):  
P. Lalthapersad-Pillay

The medical expertise to treat to complications arising from pregnancy and childbirth has not spared girls and women in developing countries from dying of such conditions. Developing countries account for the bulk of the global share of maternal deaths with complications of pregnancy and childbirth being the leading cause of death in young women aged between 15 and 49. Sub-Saharan Africa is responsible for nearly three-fifths of all global maternal deaths which have saddled it with notoriously high levels of maternal mortality ratios, a concern that has been red-flagged internationally and regionally. Most studies on maternal mortality in Africa have been confined to an examination of factors impinging on maternal mortality from both medical and socioeconomic standpoints for individual country’s based on survey data. Our study differs from others as it employs logistic regression to look at the association between non-medical factors and maternal mortality nationally for all African countries. Whilst the results from the logistic regression suggests that there is no statistically significant relationship between any of the variables and maternal mortality, the odds ratio for Human Development Index (HDI) and Gross National Income per capita (GNI) imply that African countries with low HDI are about three time more likely to have high maternal mortality compared to high HDI countries. Similarly, African countries with low GNI are about five times more likely to have high maternal mortality compared to high GNI countries.


Author(s):  
Edmore Mahembe ◽  
Nicholas M. Odhiambo

Abstract This paper aims to analyses the trends and dynamics of extreme poverty in developing countries. The study attempts to answer one critical question: has the world achieved its number one Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of reducing extreme poverty by half by 2015? The methodology used in this study mainly involves a descriptive data analysis during the period 1981-2015. The study used the World Bank’s US$1.90 a day line (popularly known as $1 a day line) in 2011 prices to measure the level of absolute poverty. In order to analyze the dynamics of poverty across different regions, the study grouped countries into five regions: i) sub-Saharan Africa; ii) East Asia and the Pacific; iii) South Asia; iv) Europe and Central Asia; and v) Latin America and the Caribbean. The study found that in 1990, there were around 1.9 billion people living below US$1.90 a day (constituting 36.9 percent of the world population) and this number is estimated to have reduced to around 700 million people in 2015, with an estimated global poverty rate of 9.6 percent. The world met the MDG target in 2010, which is five years ahead of schedule. However, extreme poverty is becoming increasingly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia (SA), where its depth and breadth remain a challenge. SSA remains the poorest region, with more than 35 percent of its citizens living on less than US$1.90 a day. Half of the world’s extremely poor people now live in SSA, and it is the only region which has not met its MDG target.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pam Zahonogo

The paper investigates how financial development affects poverty indicators in developing countries. We implement this analysis with a poverty model using data from 42 Sub-Saharan African countries and covering the period 1980-2012. We employ the System Generalized Method-of-Moment (GMM) that is appropriate to control country specific effects and the possible endogeneity. The empirical evidence shows that there indeed exists a financial development threshold below which financial development has detrimental effects on poor and above which financial development could be associated with less poverty. The evidence then points an inverted U curve type response and the findings are robust to changes in poverty measures and to alternative model specifications, suggesting thus the non-fragility of the linkage between financial development and poverty for sub-Saharan African countries. Our findings are then promising and support the view that the relation between financial development and poverty reduction is not linear for sub-Saharan African countries.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle J. Ingle ◽  
Myron M. Levine ◽  
Karen L. Kotloff ◽  
Kathryn E. Holt ◽  
Roy M. Robins-Browne

AbstractAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) dynamics are poorly understood in developing countries, where data on the prevalence of AMR in enteric bacteria are sparse, particularly among children and in the community setting. Here we use a combination of phenotyping, genomics and antimicrobial usage data to investigate patterns of AMR amongst atypical enteropathogenicE. coli(aEPEC) strains isolated from children <5 years old in seven countries (four in sub-Saharan Africa and three in South Asia) over a three-year period. We detected very high rates of AMR, with 65% of isolates displaying resistance to ≥3 drug classes; the rates of AMR were the same amongst strains associated with diarrhea and strains that were carried asymptomatically. Whole genome sequencing identified a diversity of genetic mechanisms for AMR, which could explain >95% of observed phenotypic resistance. Analysis of AMR gene co-occurrence revealed clusters of acquired AMR genes that were frequently co-located on small plasmids and transposons, providing opportunities for acquisition of multidrug resistance in a single step. We used discriminant analysis to investigate potential drivers of AMR within the bacterial population, and found that genetic determinants of AMR were associated with geographical location of isolation but not with phylogenetic lineage of theE. colistrain or disease status of the human host. Comparison with antimicrobial usage data showed that the prevalence of resistance to newer drugs (fluoroquinolones and third-generation cephalosporins) was correlated with usage, which was generally higher in South Asia than Africa. In particular, fluoroquinolone resistance-associated mutations ingyrAwere significantly associated with use of these drugs for treatment of diarrheic children. Notably resistance to older drugs such as trimethoprim, chloramphenicol and ampicillin, which are conferred by acquired AMR genes that were frequently clustered together in mobile genetic elements, were common in all locations despite differences in usage; this suggests that reversion to sensitivity is unlikely to occur even if these drugs are removed from circulation. This study provides much-needed insights into the frequencies of AMR in intestinalE. coliin community-based children in developing countries and to antimicrobial usage for diarrhea where the burden of infections is greatest.


Author(s):  
Celsa M.D.C. Machado ◽  
António F.M.G. Saraiva ◽  
Paulo D.D. Vieira

Background: There is now significant empirical literature suggesting that finance is good for growth only up to a threshold level of financial development, becoming harmful after that level, in developed and developing countries.Aim: This study extends this literature that investigates non-linearities on the finance-growth link, by testing the inverted U-shape hypothesis in sub-Saharan African countries, which are among the least developed ones.Setting: 36 countries from sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1980–2015.Method: Estimation of quadratic dynamic panel data models by system-generalised method of moments.Results: Empirical results show that there is a hump-shaped relationship between financial development and economic growth in sub-Saharan African countries.Conclusion: Results suggest that the hypothesis of ‘too much finance harms economic growth’ also holds for low-income and less developed countries, but for much lower threshold levels of financial development than those of more developed and higher-income countries. As for policy implications, measures to strengthen finance quality and other growth-enhancing strategies need to be undertaken, rather than increasing finance size.


Author(s):  
Jubril Olayinka Animashaun ◽  
Toyin Benedict Ajibade

The high reliance of Africa’s GDP on agriculture makes its economic growth susceptible to climate change. The vulnerability of Africa is further worsened by the strong inter-linkage that the agricultural sector has with other productive sectors. To drive policy implications that transform economic performance in Africa, it becomes important to understand the linkages between climate and economy of the region. This paper examines the effects that climate change has on economic performance in sub-Saharan African nations. Based on cross-country panel climatic data that takes account of the absorptive mechanism, it estimates the contribution of climate change to economic performance in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The estimator is developed based on the OLS, Fixed Effect, and the Arellano-Bond (1991) Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator. The findings show that high temperature is a significant contributor to worsening economic performance in the SSA region. However, after accounting for the absorptive mechanisms, the relationship is no longer that strong. Specifically, after accounting for initial economic performance, social and political stability in the 2-stage GMM estimation, the estimate for temperature drops by 59%. This result confirms the hypothesis that the negative impact of climate change in the region is not absolute, and that building an overall stable socioeconomic environment in the region could assist in buffering the impact of climate change.


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