The African Financial Development Gap

Abstract

Economic growth in Africa has long been disappointing. We document that the financial sectors of most sub-Saharan African countries remain significantly underdeveloped by the standards of other developing countries. We examine the factors that are associated with financial development in Africa and compare them with those in other developing countries. Population density appears to be considerably more important for banking sector development in Africa than elsewhere. Given the high costs of building roads and developing a viable banking sector, technology advances such as mobile banking could be a promising way to facilitate African financial development. Similar to other developing countries, natural resources endowment are associated with lower level of financial development in Africa, but macro policies do not appear to be an important determinant.