Remittances Inflow and Economic Growth Nexus in Sub-Saharan Africa : Do Institutional Quality and Macroeconomic Stability Matter? Evidences from Dynamic Panel Data Analysis

The challenge of 'growth' without development in most developing countries, particularly in the African region, has brought to the forefront the discussion of the effects of institutional quality and macroeconomic environment on the key determinants of growth and remittances inflows. This paper seeks to examine the capital inflow, here remittances, and economic growth nexus in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries with moderating role of institutional and macroeconomic stability: Employing a balanced panel data covering a sample of 32 countries over the period 2005 -2019, examined the hypothesis the effect of capital inflow on economic growth varies depending on the institutional quality of the recipient countries. To address the endogeneity problem, the study employed the system panel generalized method of moments (GMM) approach. The stationarity test for the unit root showed that all variables are integrated of order one, (I(1) and hence cointegrated. The dynamic panel data model and the granger causality test confirmed that there is bi-directional causality among remittance inflow, institutional quality and economic growth for the economy of SSA considering the macroeconomic environments. From the dynamic GMM model transparency and accountability in public sector augmenting with remittance inflows, property right interacted with remittance inflows and remittances interacted with policy index poses significant positive impact on per capita GDP growth. Thus, more has to be done on institutional quality and macroeconomic stability issues for their moderating roles for the effectiveness of the remittance inflows and hence their impact on the economic growth of the region