With the inflation-growth nexus being a hotly debated issue within the academic paradigm, the purpose of our study is to examine the relationship for Swaziland between 1975 and 2016 of which there currently exists very limited country-specific evidence. In the design of our study we theoretically depend on an endogenous monetary model of economic growth augmented with a credit technology which causes a nonlinear relationship between inflation and growth. Econometrically, we rely on the smooth transition regression (STR) which allows us to estimate an optimal inflation rate characterized by smooth transition between different inflation regimes. Our empirical results point to an inflation threshold estimate of 7.64% at which economic growth gains are maximized or similarly growth losses are minimized. In particular, we find that above the inflation threshold economic agents may be able to protect themselves from inflation through credit technology and a more urbanized population yet such high inflation adversely affects the influence of exports on economic growth. This noteworthy since a majority of government revenues is from trade activity via the country’s affiliation with the Southern African Customs Union (SACU). Nevertheless, the major contribution of this paper is that it becomes the first to use endogenous growth theory to estimate the inflation threshold for any African country which will hopefully pave a way for similar studies on other African countries.

中文翻译：

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斯威士兰的内在货币方法以实现最佳通货膨胀-增长联系

鉴于通货膨胀与增长之间的联系成为学术范式中一个备受争议的问题，我们的研究目的是研究1975年至2016年间与斯威士兰的关系，而目前关于斯威士兰的具体国家证据非常有限。在我们的研究设计中，理论上我们依赖于内生的经济增长货币模型，这种模型采用信贷技术来增强，从而导致通货膨胀与增长之间存在非线性关系。计量上，我们依赖于平稳过渡回归（STR），这使我们能够估算出以不同通胀制度之间的平稳过渡为特征的最优通胀率。我们的经验结果表明，通货膨胀阈值估计为7.64％，在该阈值下，经济增长收益最大化，或者类似地，增长损失最小。特别是，我们发现，超过通货膨胀阈值的经济主体可能能够通过信贷技术和更加城市化的人口来保护自己免受通货膨胀的侵害，但如此高的通货膨胀不利地影响了出口对经济增长的影响。值得注意的是，政府的大部分收入来自该国与南部非洲关税同盟（SACU）的隶属关系中的贸易活动。尽管如此，本文的主要贡献在于，它成为第一个使用内生增长理论来估计任何非洲国家的通货膨胀阈值的方法，有望为其他非洲国家的类似研究铺平道路。