Exchange rate misalignment and financial development in Africa

Abstract

We examine the effect of misaligned exchange rates on financial development in Africa. Results from quantile regression techniques and the IV Lewbel estimator reveal that exchange rate misalignment significantly hampers financial development on that continent. This result is robust across financial institutions and financial markets. We also show that while the effects of misaligned exchange rates are negative on financial institutions and positive on financial markets in African franc-zone countries, the effects are consistently negative across all financial sectors in the non-franc-zone countries there. When robustness assessment is done using quantile regression, the results show that the negative effect of misalignment on financial development is only feasible from the 75th percentile and higher in Africa in general and for the non-franc-zone countries in particular.