The role of financial intermediation in economic growth in sub-saharan Africa

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the development of the financial sector has been accompanied by economic growth in a sample of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and to further investigate whether some causal pattern emerges which might lend support to the view that financial intermediation plays a central role in economic development. Several measures of financial intermediation are considered and the study concludes that, with respect to at least one of these measures, there exists, in the early stages of development, a definitive link from financial intermediation to economic growth.