Purpose

While some countries have used debt to drive economic growth, the asymmetric effect on sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries has received little attention in the empirical literature. This paper therefore examines the asymmetric effect of external debts on economic growth.

Design/methodology/approach

The panel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) approach was employed in the study for 29 sub-Saharan African countries from 1990 to 2021. The cross-sectional dependence test was used to determine the presence of cross-sectional dependence, while the second-generation panel unit root tests was used to examine the unit-root properties.

Findings

The empirical results show that external debt has an asymmetric effect on economic growth in both the short and long run. In the long run, a positive shock in external debts of 1% triggers an upturn in economic growth by 0.216% while a negative shock triggers 0.354% decline in economic growth. This implies that the negative shock of external debts has a much stronger impact on economic growth than the positive shock. In the short run, a positive shock in external debts by 1% triggers a decline in economic growth by 0.641%, while a negative shock of 1% triggers a fall in economic growth of 0.170%.

Originality/value

The paper used the NARDL model to examine the asymmetric impact of external debt on the economic growth of SSA countries, which has not been extensively studied. It is recommended that governments in the selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa should drive economic growth by promoting domestic revenue mobilization since external debts impede economic growth.

中文翻译：

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重新审视撒哈拉以南非洲地区的债务与增长关系：来自面板非线性 ARDL 方法的新证据

目的

尽管一些国家利用债务来推动经济增长，但对撒哈拉以南非洲国家的不对称效应在实证文献中却很少受到关注。因此，本文探讨了外债对经济增长的不对称影响。

设计/方法论/途径

该研究采用面板非线性自回归分布滞后（NARDL）方法对 1990 年至 2021 年 29 个撒哈拉以南非洲国家进行研究。使用横截面依赖性检验来确定是否存在横截面依赖性，而第二代方法则用于确定是否存在横截面依赖性。使用面板单位根检验来检查单位根属性。

发现

实证结果表明，外债对经济增长的短期和长期影响不对称。长期来看，外债1%的正向冲击将引发经济增速回升0.216%，外债负向冲击将引发经济增速下降0.354%。这意味着外债的负面冲击对经济增长的影响远强于正面冲击。短期来看，外债1%的正向冲击，经济增速下降0.641%，外债1%的负向冲击，经济增速下降0.170%。

原创性/价值

论文利用NARDL模型考察了外债对SSA国家经济增长的不对称影响，这一点尚未得到广泛研究。由于外债阻碍了经济增长，建议撒哈拉以南非洲部分国家的政府应通过促进国内收入动员来推动经济增长。