Finance and Democracy in Africa

This paper focuses on how political regimes affect financial developments in Africa and the role of dominant religion, income levels and colonial legacies in this regard. The findings indicate that authoritarian regimes have a higher propensity to effect policies that favour the development of financial intermediary depth, activity and size. Democracy has important effects on the degree of competition for public offices but is less significant in influencing policies related to promoting financial development when compared with autocracies. Once democracy is initiated, it should be accelerated (to edge out the appeals of authoritarian regimes) to reap the benefits of level and time hypotheses in financial development.