market-based and bank-based financial structure on economic growth in some selected Ecowas countries

Abstract

There has been a lot of debate as to which of the financial system or structure promotes Economic Growth in an economy. In this sense policy makers have debated the relative merit of bank based and market based in affecting economic growth in the economy. This paper therefore examines the impact of financial structure on economic growth of some selected ECOWAS Countries, Relying on model developed by Levine (2002], Olofin and Udoma (2008), we specified a macro econometrics model to examine the relationship between financial structure variables and growth variable. The paper provides a useful contribution in the relationship between financial system and Economic growth in these selected ECOWAS countries. Based on the long-run and short-run estimate, it was concluded that some of the countries are Bank based financial systems while other are market based financial systems, and that financial structure matter for Growth of these economies.