Financial Development, Integration and Access to Finance in Africa

This thesis is made up of three empirical studies that fall under the general classification of international and financial economics, particularly the study focuses on the financial system of selected African countries. The first empirical study presented in Chapter 2 examines the role of financial development in improving the effect of FDI on the economic growth of some African countries. Investigations were conducted to pinpoint which financial structure could provide the best improvement by applying the bank-based vs. market-based debate. Results from the regression analysis conducted show that the effect of FDI on economic growth becomes significant only when financial development measures were factored in. Analysis of results indicate that development of the overall financial system of African countries would be more beneficial in comparison to developing either the banks or financial markets alone. Chapter 3 empirically measures the level of financial integration in Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (RECs) using beta and sigma convergence to measure the speed and degree of financial integration in four RECs. These chapter also theoretically examines how regional financial integration contributes to financial development and economic growth in Africa. Analysis of the results show that Africa’s RECs are integrating at a relatively slow and diverse rate. Therefore, policy makers in Africa would need to focus on reform strategies that would strengthen financial integration in their regions. A fully financially integrated system would contribute immensely to financial development and promote sustainable economic growth. The fourth chapter investigates the effect of access to finance on firms’ productivity. Using cross-sectional firm-level data to estimate the effect of access to finance on labor productivity, total factor productivity (TFP), and the stochastic frontier trans-log model. This study estimates an instrumental variable (GMM) model to address potential endogeneity bias between access to credit and firms’ productivity. The results obtained show that the lack of access to finance negatively affects the productivity of firms in Africa. This study suggests that the development of a balanced financial system should be of topmost priority to policy makers. This ensures that more finance is channelled towards those firms whose productivity depends heavily on the availability of finance irrespective of their characteristics. This would result in firms increasing their investments in productivity-enhancing activities, which would benefit long-term economic growth.