Foreign Direct Investment and Financial Development in Guinea: Causality Analysis

This essay provides a better comprehension of the other disregarded impacts of FDI by examining first, the causality direction then the long- and short-term interaction among inward FDI and financial development in Guinea using 1990-2017 data set. The empirical assertions are grounded on the Granger causality wald test, Bounds test for co-integration, Error correction model (ECM) and the Auto regressive distributed lag (ARDL) framework. FDI per GDP net inflows and Credit to private sector are respectively adopted as FDI measure and financial advancement indicator. The following outcomes are established: first, FDI in the long term negatively influence financial advancement in Guinea at 5% magnitude. This inference indicates that 1 percent surge in FDI per GDP induces 0.389 decrease in credit to private sector. Second, FDI per GDP [L1] negatively and significantly interact with financial advancement in the short term. Suggesting that 1 percent increase in FDI in the short term engenders 0.215 decrease in credit to private sector. Third, the causality direction remains unidirectional irrespective to the number of lags. Finally, the long- and short-term coefficients tell us the same story regardless of the time effects. Overall, contrary to the common perceptions, we found strong evidence that foreign investment does not enhance financial development in Guinea. In terms of practical implications, it seems ineffective to use FDI as financial advancement instrument within the Guinean context.