The Nexus Between Internal Investment and Economic Growth in Kenya

Abstract

Countries with a high investment GDP ratio benefit from better, competitive products and services. Which increases capital stock for production, more employment, and income; in turn reducing social and income disparities. The Kenyan government envisaged a sustained economic growth of 10% by investing in priority sectors; to become an industrialized middle-income country by the year 2030; though un-achieved to date. To examine the nexus between internal investments and economic growth, the study used annual time-series observations from the years 1996 to 2017; where internal investments are from the government; private domestic; and public-private partnership; and exogenous variables were rates of real interest; social discount; commercial lending interest; and the country risk premium on lending for investment decisions. The inference used stationarity; cointegration; significance; causality; variance decomposition of forecast error; and impulse response function. Stationarity tests suited the ARDL model which also supports small size observations. Findings were; a significant and positive influence on economic growth from lags of real GDP, government, private domestic, except public-private partnership investments. Anticipation for growth lies with; significant pairwise causality (real GDP with public investment); significant block exogeneity (public investment); endogeneity (real GDP), and exogeneity (public investment) influence; and short-run private domestic investment recovery. Keywords: ARDL, Economic Growth, Public Investment, Private Domestic Investment, Public-Private Partnership Investment, Investment Decisions.