Impact of Remittance on Economic Growth of Least Developed Countries in Sub Saharan Africa

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of remittances on economic growth of least developed countries in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). Design/methodology/approach - This study made use of annual data for the period of 1974 to 2017. It employed a time series model referred to as Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. Findings - Empirical results depicts that there exists a statistically significant long run negative relationship between remittance and economic growth in Benin, Burkina Faso, Lesotho and Togo. But it was only in Senegal that depicted a positive and statistically significance relationship between remittance and growth. Research implications or Originality – Previous work which studied remittances in SSA based on panel data which is mostly generalized. The study in each individual country has never been done before for these least developed countries, therefore, the impact of individual countries has never been done before. Consequently, our work contribute to the existing literature in that, we examine remittances on least developed countries(LDCs) individually, in addition we observe the impact in both short run and long run by using ARDL model.