Does Stock Market Development Promote Economic Growth in Botswana?

Abstract

This paper examines the empirical linkage between stock market development and sustainable economic growth in Botswana. The paper employs AutoRegression Distributed lags (ARDL)-bounds testing approach and multi-dimensional stock market development proxies to examine this relationship. The paper finds that in the long run, stock market development has a minimal and negative impact on economic growth in Botswana. However, stock market development, especially, market capitalisation development has some short-term impact on economic growth. The paper, however, failed to any impact of stock value traded and the stock value turnover on economic growth. This finding supports the numerous past studies, which have reported negative or inconclusive results on the effects of stock market development on economic growth. The paper, therefore, concludes that there is the need for increasing financial deepening and the reform and diversification of the ownership structure of the capital markets by providing further public and institutional education on the value of stock markets for economic development