Exploring the Channel of Transmission between External Debt and Economic Growth: Evidence from Lower Middle Income Countries

Abstract

The study intends to ascertain the pathway through which foreign debt affects GDP growth in lower-middle-income countries (LMICs). High external debt stock has been major source concern for many LMICs in the late 90’s and post financial crises period. Cross-section panel data from 30 countries were studied for the period 1999–2019 using a two-step system (GMM) estimation technique. The sample LMICs were further broken into Asian and African nations and the period was divided into 2010–2019 to assess the impact of post-financial crisis events. The research revealed a strong relationship between external debt and GDP growth via total factor productivity when the entire sample of LMICs was considered. However, the estimations also indicated that TFP is not a channel of transmission in Asian nations in both eras, namely 1999–2010 and the post-financial crisis period of 2010–2019, because foreign debt reduces total factor productivity. Furthermore, considering the entire sample and the post-financial-crisis period in African countries, external debt has a negative but minor connection with TFP. GDP growth shows a large and positive association with TFP in both periods in African countries.