A financial straitjacket? Côte d’Ivoire’s National Development Banks

Georges Quist

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2022, vol. 46, issue 5, 1087-1108

Abstract: The lack of financing options for African firms has led to a reappraisal of the role National Development Banks (NDBs) can play in promoting structural transformation the region. Through an analysis of bank data and policy reports, I argue that the focus on corruption by the mainstream to explain the lacklustre performance of NDBs in developing and emerging economies is overemphasised. Specifically, such arguments fail to account for underlying structural and relational asymmetries between financial sector participants, which make it difficult for NDBs to accomplish their mission. In Côte d’Ivoire, these constraints are characterised by a monetary system inherited from the colonial period that prioritises exchange rate stability over credit creation. The increasing push by International Financial Institutions to commercialise state banking is also causing the main Ivorian NDB (the Banque Nationale d’Investissement) to prioritise financial intermediation over the provision of credit to enterprises in productive sectors.

Keywords: Financialisation; Africa; Côte d’Ivoire; Development banks; Industrial policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/beac034 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:cambje:v:46:y:2022:i:5:p:1087-1108.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Economics is currently edited by Jacqui Lagrue

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Economics from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().