Drawing on balanced panel data from 2004 to 2020, this study assesses the impact of total factor productivity (TFP) and the credit information index on the export of goods and services across 27 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Building on existing literature, this study incorporates industry value-added and globalization as control variables in the export function.
This study uses the cross-sectional-autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) as a baseline estimation method. Besides, this study also employs both pooled mean group-ARDL (PMG-ARDL) and panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) as robust methods.
The long-run findings from the CS-ARDL method reveal a negative impact of the credit information index on the export of goods and services, whereas TFP demonstrates a positive association with export performance. Additionally, this study identifies the beneficial effects of industry value-added and globalization on exports. The results derived from our baseline method are robust across PMG-ARDL and PCSE panel techniques used in the analysis. These findings suggest that an advanced financial system in Sub-Saharan Africa enables exporters to secure more external financing, underscoring the necessity of enhanced credit information to explore broader market opportunities.
A more advanced financial system in Sub-Saharan Africa permits exporters to obtain more external financing, and therefore, gathering more credit information is necessary for them to explore more prospective markets. It also addresses a critical gap in understanding how financial information systems influence export performance in Sub-Saharan Africa.
