Official Development Assistance and Economic Development: Evidence from the West African Monetary Zone
Hillary Chijindu Ezeaku *
Department of Banking and Finance, Caritas University, Enugu, Nigeria
Anthony E. Ageme
Department of Banking and Finance, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu Campus, Nigeria
C. A. Anisiuba
Department of Accountancy, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu Campus, Nigeria
J. U. J. Onwumere
Department of Banking and Finance, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu Campus, Nigeria
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The goal of this paper is to examine the linkage between official development assistance (ODA) and economic development in the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ). The study made use of annualized data from six WAMZ countries from 1986 to 2015. The Panel OLS technique was employed to estimate our model. The findings revealed that official development assistance has significant negative effect on per capita income in the region. A unit change in ODA leads to 3.6% decline in GDP per capita within the period. External debt services however exert positive but insignificant impact on per capita income. The results further show that inflation rate has negative effect on GDP per capita. These findings were confirmed by orthonormal biplot analysis.
Keywords: ODA, economic development, WAMZ, panel least square