The relationships between economic growth, financial deepening, and information and communication technology: Empirical evidence from Lebanon

Abstract

The impact of financial deepening and the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in Lebanon"s economy is empirically investigated by estimating a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) using data from 1993 to 2009. In the short-run, our empirical results show that neither financial deepening nor ICT seems to impact economic growth. However, there is a unidirectional causality running from economic growth to financial deepening implying that the `demand-following" hypothesis, in which financial development is a by-product of growth, is supported in the case of Lebanon. In the long-run, economic growth is found to be strongly related to financial deepening and ICT levels. This suggests the absence of evidence for a dampening effect from either financial deepening or ICT developments on cyclical fluctuations in the shortrun, but strong effects in the long-run growth in Lebanon. A major implication of our results is that growth volatility reductions in Lebanon expected from developments of financial markets, or ICT will be slow to materialize.