◆Speaker: Kazue Demachi

◆Date: September 13, 2018

◆Presentation at UP-TUFS Seminar held at University of Pretoria

◆Presentation Title: New African Debts and Procyclicality of the Macroeconomy

◆Abstract:
Many African countries suffered from debt overhung for long years since the 1980s to 2000s. As bilateral debt cancellation scheme for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), followed by the Multilateral Debt Restructuring Initiative (MDRI) freed the African countries from the debt burden, they regained access to external borrowing. Using a dynamic panel consists of 37 Sub-Saharan African countries including 29 HIPCs, from 1996 to 2016, the impacts of external debts on their macroeconomy, especially consumption, domestic investment, and economic growth are tested. The results indicate that the volatility of output is closely correlated with the strength of linkage between external borrowing, domestic investment, and consumption. The data also shows that the volatility of output is positively correlated with higher growth, and the output of resource-dependent countries are less volatile. This finding is against the widely accepted understanding that high output volatility harms growth, and suggests the specificity of both the SSA economies and the sample period.

◆Keywords: HIPCs, sovereign bond, debt, Procyclicality