Financial Development, Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Growth: Evidence from Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)

The study followed up on the observations made by Bara et al., (2016) who observed that there was a deficit in analyzing the growth-finance nexus using data from SADC countries. The purpose of the study was therefore to ascertain the impact of foreign direct investment on economic growth through the domestic financial market channel of SADC countries. A sample of countries from the SADC region was employed with the data ranging from 1980 to 2018. The data was obtained from the IMF and the World Bank’s World Development Indicator data base. The regressors used in the study include foreign direct investment, financial sector development, interaction of financial development and foreign direct investment, trade openness, gross capital formation, inflation and government expenditure. Fixed Effects panel regression was used after the Hausman Test revealed that the FEM was the most appropriate model. The outcome of the study revealed that FDI does not have a statistically significant impact on GDP without the interaction with financial sector development. However, the effects were amplified when financial sector development is introduced in the model. With the presence of financial sector development, FDI had a positive and statistically significant impact on GDP and at the same time financial sector development had a positive impact on GDP. Recommendations emanating from the study encourage monetary authorities to strengthen their financial services sector so as to fully benefit from FDI.