IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/oaefxx/v9y2021i1p1860282.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the robust drivers of public debt in Africa: Fresh evidence from Bayesian model averaging approach

Author

Listed:
  • Madow Nagou
  • Nimonka Bayale
  • Brigitte Kanga Kouassi
  • Mariam Camarero

Abstract

While economic theory suggests a wide range of potential drivers of public debt, there is little consensus regarding the most relevant ones. This paper analyzes the determinants of the public debt in Africa. This is done by adopting a Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) approach applied to data of 51 African countries, spanning the period 1990–2018. Our results suggest that, among the set of twenty-seven (27) regressors considered, those reflecting international financial and institutional conditions as well as internal economic prospects tend to receive high posterior inclusion probabilities. Then, the study explores the effect of these regressors on public debt by employing the fixed effects (FE) and the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimators. The results reveal that, foreign aid, fiscal deficit, trade openness, military expenditure, interest and exchange rates, debt-service, domestic credit, government stability index, political regime type and socio-economic crises are the main and robust drivers of public debt accumulation in African countries. These findings are robust to changes in the model specification, the inclusion of socio-economic crises and regional heterogeneities.

Suggested Citation

  • Madow Nagou & Nimonka Bayale & Brigitte Kanga Kouassi & Mariam Camarero, 2021. "On the robust drivers of public debt in Africa: Fresh evidence from Bayesian model averaging approach," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 1860282-186, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:oaefxx:v:9:y:2021:i:1:p:1860282
    DOI: 10.1080/23322039.2020.1860282
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/23322039.2020.1860282
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/23322039.2020.1860282?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gniniguè, Moukpè & Wonyra, Kwami Ossadzifo & Tchagnao, Abdou-Fataou & Bayale, Nimonka, 2023. "Participation of developing countries in global value chains: What role for information and communication technologies?," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(3).

    More about this item

    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:taf:oaefxx:v:9:y:2021:i:1:p:1860282. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/OAEF20 .

    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.