scholarly journals Relative Impact of Domestic and Foreign Public Debt on Economic Growth in South Africa

2020 ◽  
pp. 193672442098041
Author(s):  
Talknice Saungweme ◽  
Nicholas M. Odhiambo

This paper investigates the debt-growth nexus by testing both the impact of aggregate public debt on economic growth and the relative impact of domestic and foreign public debt on economic growth using South Africa as the case study—from 1970 to 2017. Based on the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique, the findings reveal that the impact of aggregated public debt on economic growth in South Africa is statistically significant and negative, both in the short run and in the long run. The results further reveal that domestic public debt and economic growth have a statistically significant and positive relationship in the short run only. Furthermore, foreign public debt has a statistically significant and negative relationship with economic growth but only in the long run. Therefore, the study recommends the government to manage effectively its debt and to finance long-term high-returning productive investments that should translate into economic growth. Finally, the study cautions the country against growing public debt, predominantly foreign debt, to finance its increasing recurrent expenditure needs.

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thobeka Ncanywa ◽  
Nosipho Mgwangqa

Government expenditure is one of the factors that could influence economic growth and it depends on borrowing or on the amount of tax revenue. A fuel levy, as an excise tax charged on petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and biodiesel, can be an important source of revenue for the government. It can, however, be a burden on fuel consumers. The present study, as an effort to address this controversy, used the vector autoregressive approach to examine the impact of fuel levies on economic growth in South Africa. The results showed a long-run unidirectional negative relationship between economic growth and fuel levy. The conclusion was that the economy needs to grow at a higher rate so as to boost tax revenues and public expenditure. Strong revenue collection, therefore, depends on highly increasing economic growth and efficient tax administration. The implication of a growth-oriented tax system is to minimise distortions created by the tax system and create incentives for drivers of economic growth.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 448-456
Author(s):  
Mary Oyemowo Oche ◽  
Gisele Mah ◽  
Itumeleng Pleasure Mongale

The political move in South Africa occurred against a setting of high government deficits. Efforts have been made over the years by the government to reduce fiscal deficit and inflation, liberalize the capital account and the financial system as well as reduce tariffs. The main objective of this study, therefore, is to empirically investigate the effect of public debt on foreign direct investment in South African for the period 1983 – 2013. The study employs a Vector Error Correction Model, which provides both the long run and short run relationships among the variables. The long run results indicate that the relationship between public debt and foreign direct investment, as well as interest rate and foreign direct investment, is positive and statistically significant, while there is an insignificant negative relationship between exchange rate and foreign direct investment. Based on the long run results, the study, thus, recommend that the level of public debt and interest rate should increase so that the level of foreign direct investment can increase in the country. However, the policy of depreciation of rand is considered inappropriate for the economy if the desire is to increase the level of foreign direct investment in the country.


2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
Talknice Saungweme ◽  
Nicholas M. Odhiambo

Abstract This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the impact of public debt service on economic growth; and it provides an evidence-based approach to public policy formulation in Zimbabwe. The empirical analysis was performed by applying the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique to annual time-series data from 1970 to 2017. The study findings reveal that the impact of public debt service on economic growth in Zimbabwe is negative in the short run but positive in the long run. The results are suggestive of the existence of a crowding-out effect of public debt service in Zimbabwe in the short run and a crowding-in effect in the long run. In view of these findings, the government should consider fiscal and financial policies that promote a constant supply of long-term finance, long-term fixed investments, and extension of a government securities maturity structure so as to ensure sustainable short- and long-term public debt service expenditures. The study further recommends the strengthening of non-distortionary revenue mobilisation reforms to reduce market distortions and boost domestic investment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Ahmadi Murjani

 Poverty alleviation has become a vigorous program in the world in recent decades. In line with the efforts applied by the government in various countries to reduce poverty, some evaluations have been practised. The impacts of macroeconomic variables such as inflation, unemployment, and economic growth have been commonly employed to be assessed for their impact on the poverty. Previous studies in Indonesia yielded mix results regarding the impact of such macroeconomic variables on the poverty. Different methods and time reference issue were the suspected causes. This paper aims to overcome such problem by utilising the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) equipped with the latest time of observations. This paper finds in the long-run, inflation, unemployment, and economic growth significantly influence the poverty. In the short-run, only inflation and economic growth are noted affecting poverty significantly. 


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 231
Author(s):  
Tshembhani Mackson HLONGWANE ◽  
Itumeleng Pleasure MONGALE ◽  
Lavisa TALA

Fiscal policy ensures macroeconomic stability as a precondition for growth at the macro level. This study investigates the impact of fiscal policy on economic growth of South Africa from 1960 to 2014 through a Cointegrated Vector Autoregression approach. It seeks to contribute to the existing literature as well as in designing effective fiscal policy programmes which can propel economic performance. Theresults of the long run estimates revealed that government tax revenue has a positive and significant long run influence on economic growth, whereas the government gross fixed capital formation and budget deficit have a negative impact on real GDP. For that reason, the study recommends that some expansionary fiscal policy measures should be strengthened since they play a very important role in the economy so as to meet the government target of the National Development Plan Vision for 2030.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olufemi Samuel Adegboyo ◽  
Sunday Anderu Keji ◽  
Oluwadamilola Tosin Fasina

AbstractThis study examines the impact of fiscal, monetary and trade policies on Nigerian economic growth from 1985 to 2020. This study adopts endogenous growth model (AK model) as its theoretical framework. The unit root test results reveal that there is mixed level of stationarity in the variables. The bound test result shows that the variables cointegrate. The ARDL long-run result shows that fiscal policies stimulate economic growth, while on the contrary, trade policies deter Nigerian economic growth. The short-run result shows that the fiscal policies has an inconsistent impact on Nigerian economic growth and thus differs from the long-run result; while government spending continues to drive economic growth in Nigeria, government revenues have no effect on the growth of the economy. The result of the impact of monetary policies shows that interest rate impels growth of the economy while money supply deters growth of Nigeria’s economy; lastly, the trade policies maintain her negative influence on the economy in both the long run and short run. Sequel to the findings, the study recommends the following: Policymakers should place more emphasis on using fiscal policy which was found to be stimulating the country's growth rate. Whenever it is expedient to use monetary policy to stimulate economic growth, policy makers should make use of interest rates as it stimulates the growth of the economy in the short run. The government should review her trade policies to reduce import by encouraging consumption of local products and motivate exporters of goods (raw material) to refine the products before exporting such.


External debt and internal debt form main components of the public debt structure in India. India’s debt profile shows increasing external debt and simultaneously increasing the deficit in current account which have impact on economic growth of India. Our study assesses the impact of India’s Gross External Debt (GED), Internal Debt (IND) and Current Account Deficit (CAD) on economic growth (GDP) by using time series data from 1998-99 to 2018-19. We intend to find long-run as well as short run relationship between the variables with the help of Eviews software. Stationarity of data is tested by considering Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test statistics and used Johansen Co-integration test and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). The result shows co-integration among the variables with one equation. The result of VECM shows existence of long-run relationship among the variables. But the study fails to find the short-run causality among the variables. The results show external debt (GED), internal debt (IND), and Current Account Deficit (CAD) have negative and statistically insignificant relationship with GDP. It shows increase in public debt and deficit in current account results in decrease in GDP growth.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 780-799
Author(s):  
Joydeb Sasmal ◽  
Ritwik Sasmal

This article has examined the impact of public expenditure on economic growth and viability of fiscal policy when the deficit in budget is financed by public borrowing. A number of alternative criteria have been used as indicators of solvency in fiscal balance. The study is based on the theoretical framework and supported by the results of time series analysis in the Indian context. It is found that the share of revenue expenditure (RE) of the government has significantly increased over time and many of the components of RE are non-developmental in nature. The article argues that if growth suffers, it will put adverse impact on fiscal balance. The ratio of gross fiscal deficit (GFD) to net national product (NNP) and growth of NNP are co-integrated, and the ratio is found to increase with increase in NNP indicating deterioration in fiscal balance. The increase in total expenditure of the government has caused rise of the ratio of revenue deficit to total spending. Interest payment on public debt has led to the increase of the ratio of GFD to income. These results are indicators of non-viability of fiscal policy in India at least in the short run.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Gopal Prasad Bhatta ◽  
Anu Mishra

One of the common agenda of underdeveloped economies is to achieve a high and sustainable level of economic growth in the long run. Domestic and external borrowings are playing a crucial role in fulfilling the resource gap in the context of Nepal for a long period. A growing number of recent studies support the idea of a debt threshold level (turning point) above which debt starts reducing economic growth. This paper empirically investigates the relationship between economic growth and several other factors (investment, trade openness, population growth, domestic savings, and government debt) in the context of Nepal. The debt-growth relationship has been estimated by regression analysis and further explored the non-linear relationship between public debt and economic growth using time series annual data for the period of 1976-2019. The ARDL bound technique has been applied to estimate the short-run and the long run impact of debt on economic growth. Moreover, a quadratic bivariate model based on ARDL coefficients has been estimated to identify the growth maximizing level of debt. The estimated parameters confirm the optimum public debt to GDP ratio in the context of Nepal is 33 per cent. The policy implication of this finding for the Government of Nepal (GoN) is to ensure public debt management in line with the growth maximizing debt threshold. Further, a high level of trade deficits and government effectiveness in public sector management squeezes the fiscal space in utilizing adequate public debt in Nepal.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Talknice Saungweme ◽  
Nicholas M. Odhiambo

AbstractThis paper explores the causality between public debt, public debt service and economic growth in South Africa covering the period 1970 – 2017. The study employs the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration and the multivariate Granger-causality test. The empirical results indicate that there is unidirectional causality from economic growth to public debt, but only in the short run. However, the study fails to establish any causality between public debt service and economic growth, both in the short run and long run. In line with the empirical evidence, the study concludes that it is economic growth that drives public debt in South Africa, and that the causal relationship between public debt and economic growth is sensitive to the timeframe considered. The paper recommends policymakers in South Africa to consider growth-enhancing policies in the short run, since poor economic performances may lead to high public debt levels.


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