Date of Conferral

2018

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Management

Advisor

Mohammad Sharifzadeh

Abstract

The government of Ghana borrows from both domestic and foreign sources to finance the budget deficit. By the year 2013, the domestic debt was 55% of the public debt. Government domestic borrowing is competitive and can potentially crowd out the private corporate sector. Therefore, the specific research problem addressed in this study was whether the Ghanaian government's domestic debt (DEBT) caused financial crowding out (FCO) in Ghana. FCO theory is not conclusive and not proven specifically for Ghana, so the purpose of this research was to investigate its presence in Ghana. The neoclassical theory of FCO underpinned the research. The 2 research questions investigated FCO along the quantity and cost channels. The research examined the relationship between DEBT as the independent variable, the quantity of private sector credit (PSCREDIT), and the net interest margin (NIM) of banks as dependent variables. Covariates were macroeconomic and banking industry variables. The research population was the banking sector of the financial services industry. The research was correlational, and it used time series data from the Bank of Ghana and the World Bank. Data analysis used the autoregressive distributed lag method. The analysis returned a negative relationship between DEBT and PSCREDIT, and a positve relationship between NIM and DEBT. These results indicated the presence of FCO along both the quantity and cost channels. The research provides policymakers a means of quantifying the extent and effects of fiscal policies. The study may contribute to positive social change by promoting the revision of fiscal policies to favor the private corporate sector to invest, create jobs, and grow the Ghanaian economy.

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