ABSTRACT

In this study, we have explored the dynamic causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in Uganda during the period from 1980 to 2015. Although the finance-growth nexus debate has been raging for decades, Uganda, similar to many other low-income sub-Saharan African countries, has not yet received adequate coverage on the subject. To eliminate the variable omission bias associated with some previous studies, two intermittent variables, namely savings and inflation, have been included alongside financial development and economic growth in a multivariate Granger-causality setting. In addition, five proxies of financial sector development have been used in the current study, namely money supply to GDP, deposit money bank assets as a percentage of bank assets, liquid liabilities to GDP, private credit by deposit money banks to GDP, and bank deposits to GDP. Using the ARDL approach, the findings of the study reveal that the direction of causality between financial development and economic growth in Uganda is not clear-cut. It varies from one model to the other, depending on the proxy used for financial development. When financial development is proxied by liquid liabilities to GDP and bank deposits to GDP, a unidirectional causal flow from financial development to economic growth is found to prevail. When deposit money bank assets to bank assets ratio is considered a proxy of financial development, astrong bi-directional causal relationship between financial development and economic growth is found to predominate. However, when money supply to GDP and private credit by deposit money banks to GDP are used as proxies, no causality is found to exist between financial development and economic growth in either direction. Based on these results, it is recommended that when drafting policies aimed at boosting economic growth, policymakers should target growth-led financial development proxies as policy implementation outcomes may vary depending on the targeted financial development proxy.

摘要

在本研究中，我们探讨了 1980 年至 2015 年期间乌干达金融发展与经济增长之间的动态因果关系。尽管金融与增长关系的争论已持续数十年，但乌干达与许多其他低收入亚- 撒哈拉非洲国家，尚未收到有关该主题的充分报道。为了消除与先前一些研究相关的变量遗漏偏差，在多元格兰杰因果关系设置中，已将两个间歇性变量（即储蓄和通货膨胀）与金融发展和经济增长一起纳入。此外，本研究还使用了五个衡量金融部门发展的指标，即货币供应量占 GDP 的比例、存款货币银行资产占银行资产的百分比、流动负债占 GDP 的比例、存款货币银行的私人信贷对 GDP 的影响，银行存款对 GDP 的影响。使用 ARDL 方法，研究结果表明乌干达金融发展和经济增长之间的因果关系方向并不明确。它因一种模型而异，取决于用于金融发展的代理。当金融发展以流动负债对 GDP 的比率和银行存款对 GDP 的比率来衡量时，金融发展到经济增长的单向因果流动占主导地位。当存款货币银行资产与银行资产比率被认为是金融发展的一个指标时，金融发展与经济增长之间存在很强的双向因果关系。但是，当货币供应量占 GDP 的比例和存款银行对 GDP 的私人信贷被用作代理时，金融发展与经济增长在任一方向上均不存在因果关系。基于这些结果，建议政策制定者在起草旨在促进经济增长的政策时，应以增长为导向的金融发展代理为目标，因为政策实施结果可能因目标金融发展代理而异。