Abstracto

Stock market indicators and human development index in Sub-Saharan Africa: The case of Mauritius, Nigeria and South Africa (1997 - 2017).

Ugherughe JE*, MaryAnn NI

This study examined the impact of stock market indicators on the human development index of three Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries of Mauritius, Nigeria, and South Africa. The specific objectives of this study are to examine the impact of stock market size and liquidity on the human development index of SSA countries. Data for the study were collected from the World Bank Database and the United Nations Development Programme Database for the period 1997 to 2017. Human Development Index (HDI) is the dependent variable while the independent variables are stock market capitalization (MCAP) and a stock market turnover ratio (TOR) was used as a proxy for stock market indicators. A measure of central tendency was used to describe the characteristics of the variables; Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test was used for stationary testing; Johansen Co-integration test was used for the long-run relationship; Ordinary Least Square (OLS) technique was used to test the hypotheses. The results reveal that: stock market size was positive in the three countries and significant in Mauritius and South Africa and insignificant in Nigeria, and Stock market liquidity was positive and significant in Mauritius and South Africa but insignificant Nigeria. The study concludes that the stock market is the most accessible market for long-term fund geared towards improving HDI in the SSA countries studied. The study recommended that the government should encourage the most profitable companies to enlist on the stock exchange and seek more long-term funds to increase the size of the market and liquidity of the stock market.