UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES HO CHI MINH CITY THE HAGUE VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM - NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS THE EFFECT OF FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT ON ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM ASIAN COUNTRIES BY TRẦN THANH GIANG MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY, JULY 2014 UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES HO CHI MINH CITY THE HAGUE VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM - NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS THE EFFECT OF FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT ON ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM ASIAN COUNTRIES A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS By TRẦN THANH GIANG Academic Supervisor: ASSOC. NGUYỄN VĂN NGÃI HO CHI MINH CITY, JULY 2014 ii DECLARATION This is to certify that this thesis entitled “The effect of financial development on economic growth: evidence from Asian countries”, which is submitted by me in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art in Development Economic to the Vietnam – The Netherlands Programme. The thesis constitutes only my original work and due supervision and acknowledgement have been made in the text to all materials used. Trần Thanh Giang iii ACKNOWLEGEMENT I would not be able to write and finish my dissertation without the help and support of people surrounding me.
Above all, I would like to express my greatest appreciation to my supervisor, Assoc. Nguyễn Văn Ngãi, for his invaluable comments and advices, patient guidance, encouragement in during the time of doing this thesis. I have been strikingly lucky to have supervisor who cared so much my thesis and answered to all my questions. Without his guidance, my thesis would not have been possible.
I would also like to offer my special thanks to Dr. Trương Đăng Thụy and Dr. Phạm Khánh Nam for the econometric guidance and valuable suggestions that help to develop this thesis. Besides my mentors, special thanks also to all the lecturers at the Vietnam – Netherlands Program for their knowledge of all the course, during the time I studied at the program.
In addition, I would like to thank my friends and people who are always beside me and support for my thesis but are not above mentioned. Last, but not least, I am very deeply grateful to my family. Without their warm encouragement and attention, I would not be possible to complete this dissertation. iv ABBREVIATIONS WB World Bank OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development MENA Countries in the Middle East and North Africa GLS Generalized Least Squares OLS Ordinary Least Squares FEM Fix Effects Model REM Random Effects Model GMM The Generalized Method of Moments Estimation v ABSTRACT This study estimates the effect of financial development on economic growth in Asian countries in the period from 2000 to 2011.
Based on unbalanced panel data, this effect is examined by Fixed effects model (FEM) and the first difference Generalizes Methods of Moments approach (GMM). The findings indicate that financial development has significant impacts on economic growth on both estimation techniques. However, these impacts depend significantly on estimation methods and proxies for financial development. The results of FEM and first difference GMM imply that financial depth and domestic credit to private sector have negative impact on growth, but there is no relationship between stock market development and economic growth.
On the other hand, while a positive relationship between the ratio of commercial – central bank assets and growth rate of real GDP per capita is shown by FEM, this indicator is not related to growth rates in GMM results. Key words: Financial development, Economic growth, relationship, effect, endogeneity, fixed effects, random effects, Asian countries. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES. ix LIST OF FIGURES .3 Research scope and data.
5 CHAPTER 2: LTERATURE REVIEW .1 Endogenous growth theory .2 Theories of financial development. 16 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .2 Measurements of Variables .1 Measurements of financial development .2 The determinants of economic growth .1The common constant method (Pooled OLS) .2 The random effects method (REM) .3 The Fixed effects method (FEM) .4 Choice of panel regression model .5 The generalized method of moments estimation (GMM). 45 vii CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH RESULTS .1 Overview the economic growth and the financial development in the regions of Asia .1 Overview the economic growth in the regions of Asia in the period 2000 - 2011: .2 Overview the financial development in the regions of Asia in 2000 - 2011 .2 The descriptive statistic of the sample .1 Results of tests for panel regression model .2 Discussions on the research results .3 Discussions on the results of first difference GMM. 69 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND POLICY IMPLICATION.
Suggestions for further research. 91 APPENDIX C: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTIC OF VARIABLE. 94 APPENDIX D: PANEL REGRESSION MODEL. 96 APPENDIX E: RESULTS OF BREUSCH – PAGAN LM TEST.
102 APPENDIX F: RESULTS OF HAUSMAN TEST. 103 APPENDIX G: THE REGRESSION MODEL RESULTS OF FIRST – DIFFERENCE GMM. 105 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: The expected sign of variables in model .2: Tests for choosing a panel regression model .1 Descriptive statistics of the sample observation .2: The corrrelation on the sample observations .3: The results of F test and Breusch – Pagan test .4: The results of Hausman test .5: The results of FEM regression model .6: The results of first difference GMM. 70 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: The role of financial development in economic growth .1: The average growth rate of real GDP per capita in Asia regions in 2000 – 2011 .2: Financial development in Central Asia .3: Financial development in South - East Asia .4: Financial development in South Asia .5: Financial development in Eastern Asia .6: Financial development in Western Asia .7: The ratio of liquid liabilities to GDP across Asia regions .8: The ratio of domestic credit to private sector to GDP across Asia regions .9: The ratio of commercial – central bank assets across Asia regions .10: The ratio of stock market capitalization to GDP across Asia regions .11: The scatter diagram among dependent variable and financial development variables .12: The scatter diagram among dependent variable and control variables .1 Problem statements Contributing to the growth and the process of economic development in a country requires the combination of related sectors.
It has been claimed that finance is one of the important channels affecting to economic situation. Especially, under the influences of liberalization and global economic integration, countries are more concerned with the role of finance. The impact of financial development on economic growth has been studied in many aspects by many economists since several decades. Enormous contributions of financial development to the economic growth were explained by (McKinnon, 1973; Shaw, 1973).
As given by (Levine, 1997), financial development is able to improve better investment opportunities, reduce transaction costs and mobilize savings, hasten technological innovation and diversify risks for investors. Although there is an argument for the association between finance and growth, there are many different viewpoints about the direction of causality. Firstly, finance – led growth hypothesis implies that economic growth can be promoted by policies focusing on the development of financial system (King & Levine, 1993b; Levine, Loayza, & Beck, 2000; McKinnon, 1973). The growth – led finance hypothesis, contrary to the finance – led growth, suggests that the development of economy will encourage an increase in demand for the financial services, ultimately financial sector is expanded (Goldsmith, 1969; Jung, 1986; Shaw, 1973).
On the other hand, (Patrick, 1966) found the bidirectional causality between financial development and economic growth. The author discovered the causal direction runs from finance to growth in the early periods of economic growth. Because the provision of financial instruments, risk management and innovation in technologies can encourage increasing savings from savers, but at the same time, the investor can achieve higher level of profits from their investment. It proves that financial development can 1 foster capital accumulation, thus higher economic growth in the first stage of growth.
Obviously, these findings support the finance – led growth hypotheses. In the later stages, the expansion of financial sector results from increasing demands for financial services in the growth stage. As a result, it implies a causal direction runs from growth to finance and it favors the growth – led – finance hypotheses. However, there is an opinion proposes that financial development is not the most important factor of growth (Robinson, 1953).
In other words, (Lucas Jr, 1988) even rejected viewpoint that finance plays a major factor of economic growth. Its role has been over emphasized by economists. In recent years, many studies have been developed to show the role as well as the contribution of finance to economic growth in some countries and regions in the world. However, this relationship is still an ambiguous issue.
Besides some studies also emphasize the positive contributions of financial development to growth, other investigations provide opposite evidences. For instance, studying 109 developing and industrial countries in 1965 - 1994, (Calderón & Liu, 2003) suggested that the contribution of financial development to growth is higher in developing countries than industrial countries. Moreover, this study also supports for view that financial development can accelerate economic growth through rapid capital accumulation and technological change. In particular, the causal relation from finance to TFP growth is stronger in developing countries, but the direction from TFP growth to finance is stronger in industrial countries.
This result is also similar to capital accumulation. In addition, after combining both cross sectional and time series data, the result of (Christopoulos & Tsionas, 2004) exhibited that although there was no bidirectional causality between financial development and output growth in both long - run and short – run, the positive causality from financial development to growth was still manifested in 10 developing countries from 1970 – 2000. (Loayza & Ranciere, 2006), however, suggested that financial system is able to cause economic recession due to financial crisis. Specifically, financial development is not always positively related to economic growth.
Its 2 effect depends on the characteristic of financial system of each country, institution, the study period or the measurments of financial development (De Gregorio & Guidotti, 1995; Hassan, Sanchez, & Yu, 2011; Wu, Hou, & Cheng, 2010). In general, in spite of the same research subject, it is likely to lead to different results. In other words, the debatements about the relationship between financial development and economic growth have been outlined in literatures of studies by some following reasons. The first controversial issue is the choice of measurements of financial development because each indicator can lead to various conclusions.
The second aspect is the direction of relationship between these two issues. While the supply – leading hypothesis, demand – following hypothesis and two-way causality relationship appear to be supported by some papers, other studies provide no clear correlation between measures of financial development and economic growth. The third, the channels through which financial development impacts economic growth are also disputable issue. Consequently, finance and economic growth are always an interesting subject with economists and researchers.
If the role of financial development is clarified, policymakers can outline the judicious development directions and propose appropriate policies to speed up the national growth. On the other hand, nowadays, countries not only focus on developing industrial sector, but they also expand the development of financial sector through the establishment of financial center, banking system, stock market, etc. Beginning from the financial crisis in the United State during 2007 – 2009, it has spread to other countries to create the global crisis. The consequence is the collapse of financial system in a number of countries and leads to macroeconomic instabilities.
According to the level of financial development and specific characteristics of each country, the effect of financial crisis on economic growth will be different in those countries.