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This study is a pre-COVID-19 exposition of the existing situation about external debt-GDP relationship, incorporating corruption into the hypothesis, making South Africa the object of the study. The aim is to examine the causal relationship between corruption, economic growth and external debt, and in the end proffer solutions to the problems arising therefrom.

The study employed ARDL technique on time series data running from 1990 to 2019 with real gross domestic product as the dependent variable and external debt, external debt servicing, corruption, inflation and capital formation as regressors. Necessary tests that include unit root, cointegration, CUSUM and CUSUMSq, normality, serial correlation and heteroscedasticity were performed on the model.

The study shows that corruption, inflation and external debt servicing exert negative influences on economic growth while the effect of investment on growth was positive. External debt's effect in the short run was positive while its long-run effect on growth was negative. Among other things, the need to improve and strengthen public institutions in addition to targeting tax evaders and avoiders for increased government revenue were emphasized.

The study incorporates corruption into the country specific debt-GDP debate as against earlier studies that excluded corruption in their time series analysis or that were cross-country based. The authors also exposit the existing knowledge of the debt-GDP hypothesis before the outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic. This is expected to serve as a precursor to subsequent studies on the rising debt of South Africa during and after the pandemic.

Empirically, the purpose of this paper is to investigate policy variables that determine monetary policy and economic growth of some selected countries within the economic bloc of Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). The selected countries are Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Annual time series data for a panel of 11 Southern African countries spanning 1980–2015 were employed in the study. The major instrument of estimation is the dynamic regression panel model. In order to conform to econometric principles, robustness checks were carried out on the variables of interest so as to avoid spurious results. An estimation of impulse response and variance decomposition analyses were to complement the approach to the study.

The result of the long-run dynamic panel regression reveals that GDP growth rate, inflation rate, exchange rate, money supply and oil and commodity prices do have profound impact on monetary policy within SADC. It was further revealed from the study that commodity price shock is the major exogenous determinant of monetary policy dynamics and the effect is transmitted via exchange rate channel to macroeconomics of the region; with inflation rate and money supply playing a major role in the transmission mechanism as it affects the economies of the countries in this region.

The policy implication is that inflation is seen as a major challenge to the countries under review. Among other things, a hybrid of inflation and monetary targeting should be adopted to complement each other as policy combination within the region.

The study accounts for the determinants of monetary policy vis-à-vis growth potentials of some selected countries in SADC, using a combination of dynamic regression panel approach and SVAR elements.