IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ess/wpaper/id3151.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

External Debt and Growth in Developing Countries: A Sensitivity and Causal Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Abdur R. Chowdhury

Abstract

The paper aims to enhance the existing literature on the debt-growth nexus by analysing the relationship in two separate country groups using the extreme bounds analysis for sensitivity tests and the mixed, fixed, and random coefficient approach that allows for heterogeneity in the causal relationship between debt and growth. Irrespective of the debt measure used, the results are robust across the two country groups—HIPC and non-HIPC—as well as two different testing procedures. The extreme bounds analysis shows that the relationship between a debt measure and economic growth is robust to changes in the conditioning set of information included in the regression equations. The mixed, fixed, and random coefficient approach, on the other hand, show a statistically significant negative causal impact running from each of the four debt measures to economic growth in both country groups. The results have important policy implications. [Discussion Paper No.2001/95]

Suggested Citation

  • Abdur R. Chowdhury, 2010. "External Debt and Growth in Developing Countries: A Sensitivity and Causal Analysis," Working Papers id:3151, eSocialSciences.
  • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:3151
    Note: Institutional Papers
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.esocialsciences.org/Download/repecDownload.aspx?fname=Document110112010250.2474939.pdf&fcategory=Articles&AId=3151&fref=repec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eaton, Jonathan, 1987. "Public Debt Guarantees and Private Capital Flight," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 1(3), pages 377-395, May.
    2. Easterly, William & Kremer, Michael & Pritchett, Lant & Summers, Lawrence H., 1993. "Good policy or good luck?: Country growth performance and temporary shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 459-483, December.
    3. Widmalm, Frida, 2001. "Tax Structure and Growth: Are Some Taxes Better Than Others?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 107(3-4), pages 199-219, June.
    4. Leamer, Edward E, 1983. "Let's Take the Con Out of Econometrics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(1), pages 31-43, March.
    5. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 103-126, October.
    6. Hsiao, Cheng & Mountain, Dean C. & Chan, M. W. Luke & Tsui, Kai Y., 1989. "Modeling Ontario regional electricity system demand using a mixed fixed and random coefficients approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 565-587, December.
    7. Nair-Reichert, Usha & Weinhold, Diana, 2001. "Causality Tests for Cross-Country Panels: A New Look at FDI and Economic Growth in Developing Countries," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 63(2), pages 153-171, May.
    8. Foxley, Alejandro, 1987. "Latin American development after the debt crisis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1-2), pages 201-225, October.
    9. Bulow, Jeremy & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1990. "Cleaning Up Third World Debt without Getting Taken to the Cleaners," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 31-42, Winter.
    10. Henrik Hansen & Finn Tarp, 2000. "Aid effectiveness disputed," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(3), pages 375-398, April.
    11. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-963, September.
    12. Hansen, Henrik & Tarp, Finn, 2001. "Aid and growth regressions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 547-570, April.
    13. Stockman, Alan C., 1981. "Anticipated inflation and the capital stock in a cash in-advance economy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 387-393.
    14. Cooley, Thomas F & LeRoy, Stephen F, 1981. "Identification and Estimation of Money Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 825-844, December.
    15. Quah, D., 1990. "Galton'S Fallacy And The Tests Of The Convergence Hypothesis," Working papers 552, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    16. Mr. Kevin Ross & Mr. R. Brooks & Mr. Robert Powell & Ms. Ydahlia A. Metzgen Quemarez & Ms. Doris C Ross & Mr. Mariano Cortes & Saqib Rizavi & Benoit Ketchekmen & Ms. Francesca Fornasari, 1998. "External Debt Histories of Ten Low-Income Developing Countries: Lessons from Their Experience," IMF Working Papers 1998/072, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Sen, Amartya, 1983. "Development: Which Way Now?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 93(372), pages 742-762, December.
    18. Kormendi, Roger C. & Meguire, Philip G., 1985. "Macroeconomic determinants of growth: Cross-country evidence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 141-163, September.
    19. Usha Nair‐Reichert & Diana Weinhold, 2001. "Causality Tests for Cross‐Country Panels: a New Look at FDI and Economic Growth in Developing Countries," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 63(2), pages 153-171, May.
    20. Quah, Danny, 1993. " Galton's Fallacy and Tests of the Convergence Hypothesis," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(4), pages 427-443, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alan M. Taylor, 1995. "Growth and Convergence in the Asia-Pacific Region: On the Role of Openness, Trade and Migration," NBER Working Papers 5276, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Steven N. Durlauf & Andros Kourtellos & Chih Ming Tan, 2008. "Empirics of Growth and Development," Chapters, in: Amitava Krishna Dutt & Jaime Ros (ed.), International Handbook of Development Economics, Volumes 1 & 2, volume 0, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Tony Addison & Abdur Chowdhury & Mansoob Murshed, 2002. "By How Much Does Conflict Reduce Financial Development?," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2002-48, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. M. Menegatti, 2002. "Crescita e istituzioni: alcune schede riassuntive," Economics Department Working Papers 2002-EP01, Department of Economics, Parma University (Italy).
    5. Evans, Paul, 1996. "Using cross-country variances to evaluate growth theories," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 20(6-7), pages 1027-1049.
    6. Alan M. Taylor, 1996. "On the Costs of Inward-Looking Development: Historical Perspectives on Price Distortions, Growth, and Divergence in Latin American from 1930s - 1980s," NBER Working Papers 5432, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Salimans, Tim, 2012. "Variable selection and functional form uncertainty in cross-country growth regressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 171(2), pages 267-280.
    8. Johannes Fedderke, 2001. "Growth and institutions," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(6), pages 645-670.
    9. Nicholas Apergis & Christina Christou & Stephen Miller, 2012. "Convergence patterns in financial development: evidence from club convergence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 1011-1040, December.
    10. Roberto Leon-Gonzalez & Daniel Montolio, 2004. "Growth, convergence and public investment. A Bayesian model averaging approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(17), pages 1925-1936.
    11. Paul Johnson & Chris Papageorgiou, 2020. "What Remains of Cross-Country Convergence?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 129-175, March.
    12. G Cameron, 1996. "Innovation and Economic Growth," CEP Discussion Papers dp0277, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    13. K C Neanidis, 2005. "Aid, Budgetary Policies, and the Macroeconomy: Growth, Inflation, and Welfare," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 58, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    14. Celal Kucuker, 2003. "Türkiye Ýktisat Kongresi Büyüme Stratejileri Çalýþma Grubu," Working Papers 2003/5, Turkish Economic Association.
    15. David Roodman, 2007. "The Anarchy of Numbers: Aid, Development, and Cross-Country Empirics," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 21(2), pages 255-277, May.
    16. Durlauf,S.N., 2003. "The convergence hypothesis after 10 years," Working papers 6, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    17. Dehn, Jan, 2000. "The effects on growth of commodity price uncertainty and shocks," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2455, The World Bank.
    18. Arnold, Lutz G., 1998. "Growth, Welfare, and Trade in an Integrated Model of Human-Capital Accumulation and Research," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 81-105, January.
    19. Xanthippi Chapsa & Athanasios L. Athanasenas & Nikolaos Tabakis, 2019. "Real Convergence in EU-15: A Comparative Analysis of North versus South Europe," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(3), pages 3-21.
    20. Tarp, Finn, 2003. "Udviklingsbistanden i perspektiv," Nationaløkonomisk tidsskrift, Nationaløkonomisk Forening, vol. 2003(1), pages 164-186.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    externaldebt; growth; sensitivityanalysis; causality;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:3151. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Padma Prakash (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.esocialsciences.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.