The Causal Relationship Between Foreign Debt and Economic Growth: Evidence from Commonwealth Independent States

This study investigates the relationship between external borrowing and economic growth in the Commonwealth Independent States during the period 1995–2018. Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is employed to determine the co-integration relationship among the series and then vector error correction model (VECM) is used to analyse the causality between external debt and income. The obtained results suggest that there is a negative long-term unidirectional causal relationship running from external debt to GDP presenting a strong evidence of existence of debt overhang hypothesis. The possible reasons for this unidirectional causal relationship can be explained by poor management of provided financial resources and incomplete governance in economic transition process along with structural rigidities and immature institutions in these countries which, in the long term, resulted in insufficient capital charged to service external debt. The policymakers in these post-Soviet countries should not use foreign loans to capitalise the deficits in the economies; instead, they should be more determined in employing these funds in the areas that will create national value-added production and, thus, future income. JEL Classification: C10, F34, H63