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Other people's money: does external debt improve economic growth performance of Frontier market economies?

Sources of long-term growth in an economy hinge on the productive potential of the country. Major contributing factors in the production of an economy include the population representing the labour force, advanced technological inputs, investment and capital accumulation. External debt can be viewed...

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Main Author: Musonda, Mary-Anne
Other Authors: Alhassan, Abdul Latif
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Graduate School of Business (GSB) 2020
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access_status_str Open Access
author Musonda, Mary-Anne
author2 Alhassan, Abdul Latif
author_browse Alhassan, Abdul Latif
Musonda, Mary-Anne
author_facet Alhassan, Abdul Latif
Musonda, Mary-Anne
author_sort Musonda, Mary-Anne
collection Thesis
description Sources of long-term growth in an economy hinge on the productive potential of the country. Major contributing factors in the production of an economy include the population representing the labour force, advanced technological inputs, investment and capital accumulation. External debt can be viewed as a critical additional income stream to enhance the productive capacity of an economy, and to supplement internal investment in cases where internal investment is not sufficient to fund economic growth focused projects and activities. However, external debt also has devastating effects on economic growth if left unmonitored or misused. Frontier Market Economies (FMEs), which are economies developing into Emerging Market Economies (EMEs), are amongst the fastest growing in the world with this growth projected to continue into the future. Yet, these countries are often forced to rely on external financing because of insufficient local markets. It is thus of critical importance to ascertain whether external debt has been a benefit or hindrance to these economies in the past, so as to develop appropriate debt management strategies to support their growth in the future. The effect of external debt on economic growth in eight FMEs is examined in this study using the system Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) model to test for a linear relationship as well as an inverted U-shape curve between external debt and economic growth. An inverted U-shape curve implies that a threshold point exists which signals a point beyond which an economy becomes over-indebted, thus hampering economic growth. The findings of this study reveal that external debt has a positive and significant impact on economic growth in the FMEs studied. However, there was no inverted U-shape curve between the two variables. Instead a U-shape exists and thus, no maximum level of borrowing was found for the FMEs. Appropriate debt management strategies are discussed in light of the findings. Therefore, with improved demographics and strong consumption growth mixed with a lack of connection from world economics, FMEs have the potential to be part of the rapid growing economies in the world.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:40.116Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2020
publishDateRange 2020
publishDateSort 2020
publisher Graduate School of Business (GSB)
publisherStr Graduate School of Business (GSB)
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/32334 Other people's money: does external debt improve economic growth performance of Frontier market economies? Musonda, Mary-Anne Alhassan, Abdul Latif Charteris, Ailie Finance Sources of long-term growth in an economy hinge on the productive potential of the country. Major contributing factors in the production of an economy include the population representing the labour force, advanced technological inputs, investment and capital accumulation. External debt can be viewed as a critical additional income stream to enhance the productive capacity of an economy, and to supplement internal investment in cases where internal investment is not sufficient to fund economic growth focused projects and activities. However, external debt also has devastating effects on economic growth if left unmonitored or misused. Frontier Market Economies (FMEs), which are economies developing into Emerging Market Economies (EMEs), are amongst the fastest growing in the world with this growth projected to continue into the future. Yet, these countries are often forced to rely on external financing because of insufficient local markets. It is thus of critical importance to ascertain whether external debt has been a benefit or hindrance to these economies in the past, so as to develop appropriate debt management strategies to support their growth in the future. The effect of external debt on economic growth in eight FMEs is examined in this study using the system Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) model to test for a linear relationship as well as an inverted U-shape curve between external debt and economic growth. An inverted U-shape curve implies that a threshold point exists which signals a point beyond which an economy becomes over-indebted, thus hampering economic growth. The findings of this study reveal that external debt has a positive and significant impact on economic growth in the FMEs studied. However, there was no inverted U-shape curve between the two variables. Instead a U-shape exists and thus, no maximum level of borrowing was found for the FMEs. Appropriate debt management strategies are discussed in light of the findings. Therefore, with improved demographics and strong consumption growth mixed with a lack of connection from world economics, FMEs have the potential to be part of the rapid growing economies in the world. 2020-10-26T12:29:44Z 2020-10-26T12:29:44Z 2019 2020-10-26T08:38:37Z Master Thesis Masters MCom http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32334 eng application/pdf Graduate School of Business (GSB) Faculty of Commerce
spellingShingle Finance
Musonda, Mary-Anne
Other people's money: does external debt improve economic growth performance of Frontier market economies?
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Other people's money: does external debt improve economic growth performance of Frontier market economies?
title_full Other people's money: does external debt improve economic growth performance of Frontier market economies?
title_fullStr Other people's money: does external debt improve economic growth performance of Frontier market economies?
title_full_unstemmed Other people's money: does external debt improve economic growth performance of Frontier market economies?
title_short Other people's money: does external debt improve economic growth performance of Frontier market economies?
title_sort other people s money does external debt improve economic growth performance of frontier market economies
topic Finance
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32334
work_keys_str_mv AT musondamaryanne otherpeoplesmoneydoesexternaldebtimproveeconomicgrowthperformanceoffrontiermarketeconomies