International Economics

Permanent URI for this collection

http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/12345678/170

Browse

Browsing International Economics by Author "Aweke, Garedew"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    The Relationship between Public External Debt and Economic Growth in Ethiopia: Evidence from ARDL Approach to Co-integration
    (Addis Ababa University, 2016-06) Aweke, Garedew; Ferede, Tadele (PhD)
    This study is an effort to determine the effect of public external debt on economic growth in Ethiopia. Specifically, the study tries to answer the questions whether stock of public external debt and public external debt servicing has any significance effect on economic growth of the country and it also determined the magnitude of the effect. In doing this, the study used an Auto Regressive Distributive Lag model (ARDL modeling) to analyze Ethiopian data from 1981 to 2014 with GDP per capita as a function of stock of public external debt, public external debt servicing, human capital, physical capital, labor force, trade openness and policy change dummy. The empirical result reveals that in the long-run high level of stock of public external debt has a significant negative effect on economic growth and it poses great challenges on the economy. Therefore there is an evidence for the “Debt overhang” and “Conventional view” of public debt in Ethiopia. On the other hand public external debt servicing has a negative coefficient but insignificant in affecting economic growth and there is no evidence for the “Crowding out” effect in the country. In the long-run result, human capital is also found to have negative impact on GDP per capita. Moreover, Labor force has a significant positive impact but private capital formation and trade openness are insignificant in explaining the Ethiopian economy. Hence, this study recommended the government of Ethiopia and local policy makers to improve the existing policies on public external debt management such as to invest in productive activities and sectors, to implement structural change, public sector reform and tax reform, should try to minimize the dependence on external borrowing through diversifying the economy so as to generate more revenue in the domestic. Key phrases: Public external debt, Public external debt servicing, ARDL and economic growth.