IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jecomi/v10y2022i7p154-d848793.html

China in Africa: An Examination of the Impact of China’s Loans on Growth in Selected African States

Author

Listed:
  • Courage Mlambo

    (Department of Public Administration and Economics, Mangosuthu University, Durban 4133, South Africa)

Abstract

This study sought to test the impact of China’s infrastructure investment on economic growth in selected African states. Many comparative studies have shown the positive role that infrastructural loans plays in supporting economic growth. However, for Africa, the role of China’s infrastructure projects has mixed views with regards to its contribution to growth and development. A survey of the literature showed that the central question about Chinese infrastructural loans is whether the infrastructural projects are beneficial or detrimental to Africa. Currently, there is no settled opinion as to whether (or not) Africa is benefiting from the Chinese economic relations. This study was quantitative, and we used panel data to achieve our objectives. The study employed annual panel data for 15 African countries covering the period of 2000–2017. The Pooled Mean Group, Mean Group, Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares, and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares panel techniques were used for estimation purposes. The main conclusion from the quantitative analysis of China’s infrastructural loans in Africa is that China’s efforts in developing infrastructure are translating into economic growth. This study provides evidence that China’s engagement in Africa could be beneficial, given the positive relationship between loans and economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Courage Mlambo, 2022. "China in Africa: An Examination of the Impact of China’s Loans on Growth in Selected African States," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-27, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:10:y:2022:i:7:p:154-:d:848793
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/10/7/154/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/10/7/154/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. António Afonso & Christophe Rault, 2010. "What do we really know about fiscal sustainability in the EU? A panel data diagnostic," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 145(4), pages 731-755, January.
    2. Maku, Olukayode E., 2009. "Does government spending spur economic growth in Nigeria?," MPRA Paper 17941, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Itchoko Motande Mondjeli Mwa Ndjokou & Pierre Christian Tsopmo, 2017. "The effects on economic growth of natural resources in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does the quality of institutions matters?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(1), pages 248-263.
    4. repec:bla:kyklos:v:45:y:1992:i:3:p:363-78 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Pravakar Sahoo & Ranjan Kumar Dash, 2012. "Economic growth in South Asia: Role of infrastructure," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 217-252, January.
    6. Fabrizio Carmignani & Abdur Chowdhury, 2010. "Why are natural resources a curse in Africa, but not elsewhere?," Discussion Papers Series 406, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    7. Janda, Karel & Quarshie, Gregory, 2017. "Natural Resources, Oil and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa," MPRA Paper 76748, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Andreas Savvides, 1992. "Investment Slowdown in Developing Countries During the 1980s: Debt Overhang or Foreign Capital Inflows?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 363-378, August.
    9. Sima Rani Dey & Mohammad Tareque, 2020. "External debt and growth: role of stable macroeconomic policies," Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Science, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 25(50), pages 185-204, July.
    10. Johansen, Soren, 1988. "Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 231-254.
    11. Payam MOHAMMAD ALIHA & Tamat SARMIDI & Abu Hassan SHAAR & Fathin FAIZAH SAID, 2017. "Using Ardl Approach To Cointehration For Investigating The Relationship Between Payment Technologies And Money Demand On A World Scale," Regional Science Inquiry, Hellenic Association of Regional Scientists, vol. 0(2), pages 29-37, December.
    12. G. S. Maddala & Shaowen Wu, 1999. "A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 631-652, November.
    13. Chindo Sulaiman & A.S. Abdul-Rahim, 2020. "The Impact of Wood Fuel Energy on Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Dynamic Macro-Panel Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-14, April.
    14. Humphrey, Chris & Michaelowa, Katharina, 2019. "China in Africa: Competition for traditional development finance institutions?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 15-28.
    15. Wang, Chao & Lim, Ming K. & Zhang, Xinyi & Zhao, Longfeng & Lee, Paul Tae-Woo, 2020. "Railway and road infrastructure in the Belt and Road Initiative countries: Estimating the impact of transport infrastructure on economic growth," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 288-307.
    16. Horn, Sebastian & Reinhart, Carmen M. & Trebesch, Christoph, 2021. "China's overseas lending," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    17. repec:bla:obuest:v:61:y:1999:i:0:p:631-52 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Amnon Levy (ed.), 1998. "Handbook on the Globalization of the World Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1130.
    19. Samson Edo, 2002. "The External Debt Problem in Africa: A Comparative Study of Nigeria and Morocco," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 14(2), pages 221-236.
    20. Manes, Eran & Schneider, Friedrich & Tchetchik, Anat, 2016. "On the Boundaries of the Shadow Economy: An Empirical Investigation," IZA Discussion Papers 10067, IZA Network @ LISER.
    21. Easterly, William, 1999. "The ghost of financing gap: testing the growth model used in the international financial institutions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 423-438, December.
    22. Kenneth Button & Junyang Yuan, 2013. "Airfreight Transport and Economic Development: An Examination of Causality," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(2), pages 329-340, February.
    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. Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann & Axel Dreher & Dierk Herzer & Stephan Klasen & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso, 2012. "Does foreign aid really raise per capita income? A time series perspective," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(1), pages 288-313, February.
    2. Muhammad Mustapha Abdullahi & Nor Aznin Bt Abu Bakar & Sallahuddin B. Hassan, 2016. "Debt Overhang versus Crowding Out Effects: Understanding the Impact of External Debts on Capital Formation in Theory," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 6(1), pages 271-278.
    3. Eberechukwu UNEZE, 2011. "Foreign Aid And The Real Exchange Rate In The West African Economic And Monetary Union (Waemu)," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 11(1).
    4. Christoph Hanck & Robert Czudaj, 2013. "Nonstationary-Volatility Robust Panel Unit Root Tests and the Great Moderation," Ruhr Economic Papers 0434, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    5. Lopez, Claude & Papell, David H., 2012. "Convergence of Euro area inflation rates," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1440-1458.
    6. Habibullah, M.S. & Law, Siong-Hook & Dayang-Afizzah, A.M., 2008. "Defense spending and economic growth in Asian economies: A panel error-correction approach," MPRA Paper 12105, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Muntasir Murshed & Seemran Rashid, 2020. "An Empirical Investigation of Real Exchange Rate Responses to Foreign Currency Inflows: Revisiting the Dutch Disease Phenomenon in South Asia," The Economics and Finance Letters, Conscientia Beam, vol. 7(1), pages 23-46.
    8. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Rasool, Ghulam & Ahmed, Khalid & Mahalik, Mantu Kumar, 2016. "Considering the effect of biomass energy consumption on economic growth: Fresh evidence from BRICS region," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1442-1450.
    9. Jacobo Campo Robledo & Henry Antonio Mendoza Tolosa, 2014. "Gasto Público y Crecimiento Económico regional en Colombia (1984 - 2012)," Documentos de Trabajo 12425, Universidad Católica de Colombia.
    10. Mohammad Tawfiq Noorzai & Aziz Kutlar & Aneta Bełdycka-Bórawska & Tomasz Rokicki & Piotr Bórawski, 2025. "Evaluation of the Relationship Between Ecological Footprint, Economic and Political Stability Variables in SAARC Countries with PVAR Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(20), pages 1-22, October.
    11. Ali, Rafaqet & Bakhsh, Khuda & Yasin, Muhammad Asim, 2023. "Causal nexus between air transportation and economic growth in BRICS countries," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    12. Munawar-Shah, Syed & Abdul-Majid, Mariani & Hussain-Shah, Syed, 2014. "Assessing Fiscal Sustainability for SAARC and IMT-GT Countries," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 5(2), pages 26-40.
    13. Österholm, Pär, 2004. "Estimating the Relationship between Age Structure and GDP in the OECD Using Panel Cointegration Methods," Working Paper Series 2004:13, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    14. Ghulam Akhmat & Khalid Zaman & Tan Shukui, 2014. "Impact of financial development on SAARC’S human development," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(5), pages 2801-2816, September.
    15. Campo Robledo, Jacobo, 2011. "Sostenibilidad fiscal: una aproximación con datos panel para 8 países Latinoaméricanos [Fiscal sustainability: A data panel approach for eight Latin American countries]," MPRA Paper 33091, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Gabriella Deborah Legrenzi & Costas Milas, 2010. "Spend-and-Tax Adjustments and the Sustainability of the Government's Intertemporal Budget Constraint," CESifo Working Paper Series 2926, CESifo.
    17. Khan, Muhammad Azhar & Khan, Muhammad Zahir & Zaman, Khalid & Arif, Mariam, 2014. "Global estimates of energy-growth nexus: Application of seemingly unrelated regressions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 63-71.
    18. Alagidede, Paul & Adu, George & Frimpong, Prince Boakye, 2014. "The effect of climate change on economic growth: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 017, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Marson, Marta & Savin, Ivan, 2022. "Complementary or adverse? Comparing development results of official funding from China and traditional donors in Africa," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 189-206.
    20. Nejib Hachicha, 2003. "Capital Inflows-National Saving Dynamics in Tunisia: Evidence from Cointegration, Weak Exogeneity and Simultaneous Error Correction Modelling," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 43-60.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:gam:jecomi:v:10:y:2022:i:7:p:154-:d:848793. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.