Farai Kwenda

The impact of leverage on discretionary investment: African evidence

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of leverage on firms’ discretionary investment in Africa. Design/methodology/approach The authors employ a dynamic panel data model estimated with generalised method of moments (GMM) estimation techniques on the panel data of listed African non-financial firms. A dynamic model and the generalised methods of moments estimations are handy in controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, endogeneity, autocorrelation, heteroscedasticity, etc. Findings In spite of different settings, markets, leverage levels and methodologies, the authors found evidence that leverage constrains investment in African firms. The negative impact is more pronounced in firms with low-growth opportunities than in firms with high-growth opportunities. The results are inclined to the theory that leverage plays a disciplinary role to avoid overinvestment. Research limitations/implications African firms’ investment policy does not solely depend on the neoclassical fundamentals determinants of profitability, net worth and cash flows. Financing strategy also has a considerable bearing on the investment policy. The results provide evidence that leverage is a negative externality to the firm’s discretional investment policy for both lowly levered and highly leveraged firms. African firms’ should consider maintaining their low debt levels and rely more on internally generated funds so as not to suppress any available cash flows to interest payments and loan covenants from debt holders. Originality/value The study contributes to the literature on investment and financial leverage by the authors providing evidence from Africa, a developing continent, that has not been explored. It shows how conservative leverage levels of African firms, which have been reported to be rising, are impacting on investments. Pertaining to empirical methodology, the authors employ a dynamic panel data model, the GMM estimation technique, which is robust in controlling endogeneity, and a possible bi-directional causality between leverage and investment which have not been used in literature. The study also enables a comparison of the effect of high leverage and low leverage on firm’s discretional investment.

Competition and commercial banks risk-taking: evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa region

ABSTRACT This study investigates the relationship between competition and the risk-taking attitude of banks. We test how this relationship manifests in the Sub-Saharan African(SSA) region’s commercial banks in light of the competition-fragility view, using the generalized methods of moments. We studied 440 commercial banks in 37 SSA countries over the period 2006–2015. The results provide evidence that supports a positive relationship between competition and banks’ overall risk as well as their credit risk but suggests that off-balance sheet risk reduces with competition. We, therefore, conclude that the propensity to undertake higher risk in a competitive banking environment largely accounts for fragility as argued in the competition-fragility view.

Competitive Condition of Sub-Saharan Africa Commercial Banks

Abstract This study assesses the competitive environment and the determinants of the Sub-Saharan Africa commercial banking sectors. We used the Lerner index that is generally acknowledged as the best at estimating the bank level competition and the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) to study 440 commercial banks for the period 2006 to 2015. We found a monopolistic competitive banking market. We also observed that competition is driven by the level of bank capital including some bank specific variables. Hence, we concluded that the banking market of the SSA region is contestable and competitive. As such, we recommend, among other things, that policy makers should device measures to ensure an ongoing competitive banking environment while stimulating other economic variables to complement this feat.