The relationship between saving mobilisation, investment and economic growth in Namibia

Thesis (MDF (Development Finance))--Stellenbosch University, 2015.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study sought to analyse the dynamic relationship between domestic savings, investment and economic growth in Namibia, and ascertain the direction of causality between domestic savings, investment and economic growth, using the vector auto-regression methodology. This method relies on the use of impulse response functions and forecast error variance decompositions. The major findings of the study are outlined below. First, the study shows that shocks to savings affect savings, investment and economic growth positively and significantly. In addition, shocks to investment significantly affect investment and savings in the short run, but they are insignificant in explaining economic growth. Further, shocks to economic growth significantly influence savings, investment and economic growth. Second, the variance decomposition results show that the variation in savings is largely explained by shocks to savings, investment and economic growth, in that respective order of size. Furthermore, the variation in investment is explained significantly by shocks to all three the variables although it can be noted that savings and economic growth are more important in explaining investment in the long run than investment. The study also established that variations in economic growth are not explained by investment shocks in both the short and long runs. In brief, savings shocks are more important in explaining variations in economic growth than economic growth in the long run.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaa