Does External Debt Promote Human Longevity in Developing Countries? Evidence from West African Countries

Abstract

This study assessed the impact of external debt on longevity in developing countries, particularly in West Africa, from 1981 to 2020. Longevity was proxied by life expectancy at birth, while the study evaluated effects from external debt from the perspective of sustainability, liquidity, and solvency. Furthermore, outcomes from macroeconomic volatility were controlled through inflation and exchange rate variability. Methodologically, the robustness of inferences was ensured by using estimated outcomes from the cross-sectional augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL), dynamic common correlated effects (DCCE), and the Driscoll–Kraay (D–K) methods. Empirically, the study showed that unsustainable, illiquid, and insolvent external debt and macroeconomic volatility shorten longevity mainly in the long-term in West African countries. Hence, longevity will decline when weak external debt management promotes poverty in developing countries.

Renewable Energy and Ecological Sustainability in Africa: Does Foreign Debt and Financial Globalisation Matter?

“…This value marginally falls short of the world's mean (1.75 gha) (GFN, 2022). Table 2 demonstrates that the average debt-to-GDP of 51.66% exceeds the prudential baseline of 40% for developing and emerging economies required for fiscal sustainability (Choudhury and Islam, 2016;Aladejare, 2021;Aladejare, 2023d). The mean renewable energy as a share of total energy consumption (66.60%) is relatively high, indicating the growth of the energy source in the continent.…”

Assessing Quality of Life from the Lens of Sustainability in Africa

“…This result agrees with earlier research, including Immurana (2021), Fortuin (2022), and Aladejare (2023a). One common trait with developing countries, particularly Africa, is the lack of continuity of public projects and the misappropriation of external borrowings on activities that are not correlated with improving welfare (Aladejare, 2023a). External debts augment infrastructural development in different sectors of the economy when a saving-investment gap exists.…”

“…Most development economists agree that economic productivity is reflected by a nation's quality of life (QoL). Also, most researchers concede that the term QoL has diverse perspectives, such as happiness, a good life, well-being, and a valued or fulfilled life Aladejare, 2023a). Since QoL is multifaceted, scholars have also employed various indicators in its evaluation.…”

Does Rising Resources Income, Consumer Prices, Government Outlay, and Globalisation Hinder Africa's Sustainable Development?

“…Thus, debt repayment and deficit financing trajectory in developing countries have been upward while crowding-out investment for infrastructural development and outlay on socio-economic factors (such as education, income, security, unemployment, and social support). Many African countries are beginning to groan under the heavy burden of debt repayment, which is gulping an enormous share of public revenue and outlay (Aladejare, 2023b). African countries find themselves over-burden by their debt obligations because a vast portion of their expenditure is devoted to inefficiencies such as misappropriation, poor quality of government services, corruption, waste of resources, and the crowdingout of private spending (IMF, 2019;Cristobal et al, 2021).…”

“…African countries find themselves over-burden by their debt obligations because a vast portion of their expenditure is devoted to inefficiencies such as misappropriation, poor quality of government services, corruption, waste of resources, and the crowdingout of private spending (IMF, 2019;Cristobal et al, 2021). Thus, as public spending keeps rising, a significant amount of it gets crowded away by growing debt repayment obligations, thereby constraining outlay on projects needed to actualise sustainable development (Van et al, 2020;Aladejare, 2023b).…”