Manamba Epaphra

• Professor
• Deputy Rector (Academic/Research/Consultacy) at Institute of Accountancy Arusha

The general objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship between trade liberalization, growth, and the balance of payment in Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper covers a total of 37 sub-Saharan African countries for a period of 24 years, spanning from 1996 to 2019. The formal regression analysis makes use of generalized moment methods (GMM). We...

This paper examines the response of stock market development to monetary policy in Tanzania using monthly time-series data for the period spanning from 2011 to 2020. The paper employs the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) to determine the response of the stock market to monetary variables, namely money supply, inflation, the exchange rate,...

This paper examines the impact of fiscal and monetary policies as well as the exchange rate on real GDP in Tanzania using time series data for the period spanning from 1966 to 2017. The paper employs the autoregressive distributed lag-vector error correction model (ARDL-VECM). Empirical results show that an expansionary monetary policy through an i...

Motivation for the study: External debt is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and hence there is a need for further empirical studies investigating the effect of external debt on African countries’ growth, leading to policy formulation that would address external debt burden in Africa. Research purpose: This paper examined the effect of...

This paper examines market efficiency in the foreign exchange market in Tanzania. A nonlinear Markov switching model was used to analyse the Tanzanian shilling against the US dollar spanning from 2 January 2009 to 30 April 2020. The estimation period was 2 January 2009–28 May 2019, and the post‐sample forecast period was 28 May 2019–30 April 2020....

Background: Financial market participation is explained from the viewpoint of financial literacy, awareness, investors’ risk aversion, and cost of stock market participation but could not be successful. As a result, households’ lack of participation in the stock market remains a puzzle across the world. Aim: The paper examines the factors determin...

This paper provides an empirical analysis on the determinants of FDI inflows in Africa. The dataset used for this paper spans from 1996-2016 and involves 48 African countries. For inferential analysis the paper employs random (RE) effect model. Both structural factors and the quality of institutions and governance indices are examined. The key find...

This paper examines the effect of institutions on economic growth in Africa. The paper uses a sample of 48 countries for the 1996-2016 period. It applies generalized methods of moment (GMM), fixed effects (FE) and random effects (RE) models. However, due to the fact that GMM is well suited to deal with potential endogeneity problems in the model, i...

This paper provides an empirical analysis on the determinants of FDI inflows in Africa. The dataset used for this paper spans from 1996 to 2016 and involves 48 African countries. For inferential analysis, the paper employs random effect (RE) model. Both structural factors and the quality of institutions and governance indices are examined. The key...

Dividend policy is one of the most debated issues within corporate finance. Even though an extensive amount of research regarding dividends has been conducted, the results and conclusions are not without controversy. Indeed, measurements of dividend policy and some determinants of dividend policy vary across studies. This paper examines the determi...

This paper examines the determinants of dividend policy of manufacturing companies listed on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange in Tanzania. Two measures of dividend policy namely, dividend yield and dividend payout are examined over the 2008-2016 period. In addition, three proxies of profitability namely return on assets ratio, return on equity rati...

Aim/purpose – This paper examines the relationship between budget deficits and selected macroeconomic variables in Tanzania for the period spanning from 1966 to 2015. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses Vector autoregression (VAR) – Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and variance decomposition techniques. The Johansen’s test is applied t...

This paper examines the relationship between current account and government budget deficits in Tanzania. The paper tests the validity of the twin deficits hypothesis, using annual time series data for the 1966-2015 period. The paper is thought to be significant because the concept of the twin deficit hypothesis is fraught with controversy. Some res...

This paper examines the determinants of demand for money and its stability in Tanzania using annual time series data spanning from 1966 to 2015. Economic analysis of the money demand function is facilitated by the Johansen cointegration, vector autoregressive-vector error correction model (VAR-VECM) and variance decomposition with the main objectiv...

This paper estimates the magnitude of, and changes to the subterranean economy in Tanzania, as well as its adverse effect on tax revenue during the 1966-2015 period. To achieve this objective, the paper applies currency-ratio due to Gutmann and the traditional currency-demand approach à la Tanzi. Despite their differences, both approaches suggest t...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has become an important factor of development in low income countries. At the same time, corruption continues to be one of the greatest obstacles to economic and social development in these countries. However, in East Africa, the study of the nature of corruption as well as its relationship with FDI is scanty. In add...

Policy makers need accurate forecasts about future values of exchange rates. This is due to the fact that exchange rate volatility is a useful measure of uncertainty about the economic environment of a country. This paper applies univariate nonlinear time series analysis to the daily (TZS/USD) exchange rate data spanning from January 4, 2009 to Jul...

In this paper we analyze the effects of institutional variables (corruption and governance), structural variables (per capita income, trade openness, inflation and share of agriculture in GDP), and policy variables (tax rate and tariff rate) on total tax revenues, direct taxes, indirect taxes and trade taxes using panel data set for 30 African coun...

There is growing emphasis on the role of institutions on explaining Africa’s economic growth ahead of the traditional factors such as capital accumulation. However, it is not clear which of the institutions and governance indicators namely control of corruption, government effectiveness, political stability, regulatory quality, rule of law and voic...

Although it may seem natural to argue that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) can bridge the investment gap in developing countries’ economy, which in turn foster economic growth, this paper shows that the effects of FDI vary greatly across sectors. In fact, there is a lack of systematic evidence on the actual impact of FDI on the host country. An emp...

This paper analyzes the causal effect between domestic private investment, public investment, foreign direct investment and economic growth in Tanzania during the 1970-2014 period. The modified neo-classical growth model is used to estimate the effect of investment on economic growth. Also, the economic growth models based on Phetsavong & Ichihashi...

Achieving high economic growth rate while maintaining low inflation rate, has become the main objective of monetary authorities all over the world. Indeed, empirical literature reflects that high inflation rates are detrimental to long run growth and entail welfare costs. To achieve this objective, central banks have availed different options from...

Tanzania has been experiencing a persistent balance of trade deficit since the 1970s. This paper examines factors affecting export performance in Tanzania during the 1966-2015 period by employing Johansen cointegration and Granger causality approach. The Error Correction Modeling is employed to estimate the model. Based on the findings of cointegra...

This paper analyzes the causal effect between domestic private investment, public investment, foreign direct investment and economic growth in Tanzania during the 1970-2014 period. The modified neo-classical growth model is used to estimate the ieffect of investment on economic growth. Also, the economic growth models based on Phetsavong and Ichiha...

Achieving high economic growth rate while maintaining low inflation rate, has become the main objective of monetary authorities all over the world. Indeed, empirical literature reflects that high inflation rates are detrimental to long run growth and entail welfare costs. To achieve this objective, central banks have availed different options from...

Achieving high economic growth rate while maintaining low inflation rate, has become the main objective of monetary authorities all over the world. Indeed, empirical literature reflects that high inflation rates are detrimental to long run growth and entail welfare costs. To achieve this objective, central banks have availed different options from...

This paper analyzes the causal effect between domestic private investment, public investment, foreign direct investment and economic growth in Tanzania during the 1970-2014 period. The modified neo-classical growth model that includes control variables such as trade liberalization, life expectancy and macroeconomic stability proxied by inflation is...

Tax evasion is the basic characteristic of many developing countries. De facto tax collections are consequently far below revenue implied by published or de jure tax rates. This paper empirically examines tax rates (tariff plus VAT rates) as the determinants of customs revenue evasion across products, based on a systematic analysis of discrepancies...

This paper examines the argument that trade liberalization depresses the import duty revenue, and consequently adversely affects the total tax revenue. The study is thought to be significant because Tanzania experiences difficulty in replacing import duty revenue loss as a consequence of trade reform by strengthening its consumption tax system. In...

This paper investigates bank characteristics and macroeconomic factors responsible for widening interest rate spreads in Tanzania following liberalization and reform of the financial system in 1991. The paper uses quarterly time series data covering the 1986–2013 period. At the empirical level, Johansen test and Engle-Granger (two-step) single equa...