The financial development and investment nexus : empirical evidence from three Southern African countries

Abstract

The study examines the dynamic relationship between financial development and investment in three Southern African countries (Botswana, South Africa and Mauritius) during the period 1976 – 2014 using annual data. The motivation for selecting these countries is mainly based on their different characteristics in their economic and financial structure. Employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds test approach, the study examines the role of financial development in boosting investment; and the causal relationship between financial development and investment. The study makes use of composite financial development indices and divides financial development into bank-based and market-based financial development. In addition, both the impact of bank- and market-based financial development on investment, on the one hand; and the causality between bank- and market-based financial development and investment, on the other, were examined within the flexible accelerator model/framework. For both models, both bank-based and market-based financial development are assumed as having an accelerator-enhancing effect on investment. Empirical results show that, for Botswana, the impact of bank-based financial development on investment is positive in both the short run and the long run while no impact of market-based financial development is found for both periods. For South Africa, the effect of bank-based financial development on investment is found to be negative in the short run and has no impact in the long run. However, market-based financial development has only a positive effect on investment in the long run. For Mauritius, market-based financial development is the only type of financial development found to have a significant positive effect on investment, and only, in the short run. The results of the causality test show that: for Mauritius, both bank-based and market-based financial development tend to drive investment, both in the short run and in the long run; while- in South Africa, investment drives both bank-based and market-based financial development only in the short run. In Botswana, bank-based and market-based financial development and investment drive each other in the short run while investment tends to only drive bank-based financial development in the long run. Therefore, all three countries show differing results and tend to confirm that there are inter-country differences that determine the relationship between investment and financial development. The inter-country differences maybe as a result of the different stages of financial and economic development for each country.