Private Investment in Developing Countries

Download or read book Private Investment in Developing Countries written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1990-04-01 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper analyzes the effects of several policy and other macro-economic variables on the ratio of private investment to GDP in developing countries. Using data for a sample of 23 developing countries over the period 1975-87, the econometric evidence indicates that the rate of private investment is positively related to the real growth rate of GDP, public sector investment, and to a lesser extent the level of per capita GDP, while it is negatively related to domestic inflation, the debt service ratio, the debt-to-GDP ratio, and high real interest rates. There is also some indication that all but the last of these variables had a greater impact before the onset of the debt crisis in 1982, while the debt-to-GDP ratio (a measure of a country’s debt overhang) has become more important since then.