Foreign direct investment, economic growth and financial sector development in Africa

The overarching aim of this study is to examine the relationship among foreign direct investment (FDI), economic growth and financial sector development relying on annual panel data spanning 1980–2016 from 45 African countries. Results from the two-system generalized method of moments reveal an ambiguous effect of FDI on economic growth although, for most part, higher FDI is associated with higher growth. Thus, the precise effect of FDI on economic growth is conditioned on the model specification. Interestingly, we notice that financial sector dampens the positive effect of FDI on economic growth. This finding holds irrespective of the indicator of financial sector and economic growth although the dampening effect of domestic credit is higher relative to private credit.