Abstract:
There is a credit market failure in Ethiopia, as evidenced by constraints on banks giving
agricultural credit, unbalanced economic sector finance, and worse agricultural credit
performance. It is possible to look into the seriousness of these problems using a variety of
techniques. The analysis of macroeconomic and bank-specific variables that influence
agricultural credit and the performance of agricultural finance, as well as how agricultural
finance influenced Ethiopia's export performance with key trading partners and economic
development, were the objectives of the study. Secondary Time series data (1981 to 2021)
from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Governance Indicators, and
National Bank of Ethiopia were collected and used to determine the factors that influence
agricultural credit provisions, performance of agricultural credits and the relationship
between agriculture credit and economic development of Ethiopia. In addition, panel data
from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, World Governance Indicators,
National Bank of Ethiopia and World Commodities Trade data were gathered from 2000 to
2020 and used to analyze the effects of agriculture credit on Ethiopian export performances
with 17 major trading partners. The Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) approach is
used to determine the variables that affect agricultural credit, performances, and its impact
on economic development of the country. In addition, the study employed the two-step system
generalized moment method to analyze dynamic panel data between agricultural credit and
Ethiopian export performance with key trading partners (SGMM). The long-run agriculture
credit ARDL model results show that, GDP, number of bank branches, currency out of bank,
and trade openness all have significant positive effects on bank agriculture credit. Climate
change and foreign direct investment have a long-term negative impact on agricultural
credit. Furthermore, in the short run, agriculture credit lag, currency out of bank, number of
bank branches, foreign direct investment and trade openness all have significant positive
effects on bank agriculture credit disbursement. In addition, the significant adjustment
toward Equilibrium Error correction (ECT) confirms the existence of a long-run equilibrium
relationship among the variables included. From the agriculture credit nonperforming loan
model. Only five variables, Probability of Credit Default, Interest Rate Margin, and Number
xv
of Branch's, have significant positive effects on bank agriculture credit in the long run, while
Real GDP Growth and Institutional Quality have significant negative effects on agriculture
nonperforming loans. As expected, there is no significant relationship between bank
agriculture credit and agriculture non-performing loan. ECT's short run error correction
coefficient is also statistically significant. This demonstrates that the deviation of agricultural
credit nonperforming loans from equilibrium values is corrected the following year. Human
development index ARDL model result also revealed that agriculture credit, board money
supply, life expectancy, and trade openness all have positive long-run effects on HDI.
However, in the short run, money supply has a negative significant effect on economic
development, whereas life expectancy, saving deposits, and inflation have positive effects.
The presence of a significant ECT confirms the existence of a long-run equilibrium
relationship among the variables included in the mode. More importantly, the relationship
between bank agricultural credits and HDI is unidirectional or agriculture credit induce
economic development. Finally, the system generalized moment method (SGMM) was used to
capture the effect of agriculture credit on export value with major trading partner. The
results show that foreign direct investment, exporter country GDP, agriculture credit, and
lag of last year export value have a significant effect on current export value with major
trading partner. At end, the policy implication for this study is that adequate attention must
also be paid to improving agricultural credit and agriculture credit performance.
Stakeholders should develop policies that encourage agriculture finance rather than treating
it as a separate strategy from economic development; rather, it should be treated as an
integral component of the same strategy.