The relationships between economic growth, financial deepening, and information and communication technology

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.