Long-run Equilibrium Relationship Between Financial Intermediation and Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence from Philippines

The financial sector is one of the most important building blocks of the economy. When this sector efficiently implemented a well-crafted program on banking and financial system to translate financial activities to income-generating activity, economic growth will be realized. Hence, this study analyzed the effect of financial intermediation on economic growth and the existence of cointegrating relationship using time-series data from 1986 to 2015. The influence of financial intermediation in terms of bank credit to bank deposit ratio, private credit, and stock market capitalization and time trend to economic growth was estimated using ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression. The results showed that all the financial intermediation indicators and time trend exert significant effect on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. The positive sign of the time trend indicates that there is an upward trend in GDP per capita averaging approximately 0.06 percent annually. Furthermore, the cointegration test using the Johansen procedure revealed that there is a presence of long-term equilibrium relationship between financial intermediation and time trend and economic growth, and rules out spurious regression results. This study established the idea that financial intermediation in the Philippines has a significant and vital role in stimulating growth in the economy.