{"title":"Household savings, financing and economic growth in South Africa","authors":"I. Mongale, Tumelo Mashamaite, N. Khoza","doi":"10.15208/BEH.2018.09","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The South African economy is characterised by low levels of household savings which play a very crucial role in stimulating sustained economic growth. At the same time consumers borrow in order to consume. The paper intends to investigate the impact of household savings and financing on economic growth in South Africa. The study is envisaged to assist monetary authorities and policy makers to mitigate this problem. An annual time series data covering the period from 1980 to 2014 is analysed by means of the Vector Error Correction Model approach. The Johansen Cointegration test results confirmed the existence of a long run relationship amongst variables under investigations. Moreover, the results suggest that financing, namely; credit extensions and leasing finance have positive relationships with the country’s economic growth while household savings indicate a negative relationship with growth. That being the case, the recommendation is that since it has been established by other studies that a rapid increase in credit is not commonly perceived to be one of the leading indicators of financial instability, policymakers are advised to consider imposing stringent credit control measures so that the demand for financing can be kept under control.","PeriodicalId":43750,"journal":{"name":"Business and Economic Horizons","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"4","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Business and Economic Horizons","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.15208/BEH.2018.09","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 4
Abstract
The South African economy is characterised by low levels of household savings which play a very crucial role in stimulating sustained economic growth. At the same time consumers borrow in order to consume. The paper intends to investigate the impact of household savings and financing on economic growth in South Africa. The study is envisaged to assist monetary authorities and policy makers to mitigate this problem. An annual time series data covering the period from 1980 to 2014 is analysed by means of the Vector Error Correction Model approach. The Johansen Cointegration test results confirmed the existence of a long run relationship amongst variables under investigations. Moreover, the results suggest that financing, namely; credit extensions and leasing finance have positive relationships with the country’s economic growth while household savings indicate a negative relationship with growth. That being the case, the recommendation is that since it has been established by other studies that a rapid increase in credit is not commonly perceived to be one of the leading indicators of financial instability, policymakers are advised to consider imposing stringent credit control measures so that the demand for financing can be kept under control.
期刊介绍:
The Business and Economic Horizons (BEH) is an international peer-reviewed journal that publishes high quality theoretical, empirical, and review papers covering the broad spectrum of research in areas of economics, business, management, and finance. The journal aim is to bridge the gap between the theory and the observed data in these constantly developing domains. BEH Editorial Board welcomes the high-quality original research articles and review papers that verify the well-grounded and the emerging theories by employing the econometric, statistical methods or other relevant empirical methods in theoretical and applied economic analysis. BEH does not discriminate articles utilizing the non-mainstream approaches such as experimental research, institutional analysis, other variations of heterodox and developmental economic studies. Therefore, the submissions in any field of micro- and macroeconomics, business ethics, economic policy or finance are appropriate for this journal. We hope, the provided contributions will help to understand the contemporary challenges faced by the private and public sector and will establish an international forum of empirical research.