Essays in Empirical International Finance and Growth: A Closer Look at Sub-Saharan Africa

The thesis, comprising three chapters in empirical international finance and growth, with a focus on SubSaharan Africa, examines the growth impact of foreign direct investment in the first chapter, the existence of a transfer problem and the effects of financial liberalisation on real exchange rate in the second chapter, and whether monetary fundamentals explain nominal exchange rate movements in SSA in ways consistent with the monetary model of exchange rate in the third chapter. The contribution of the thesis to knowledge is mainly empirical - it consists of using a broad range of existing econometric models to comprehensively test some important but hitherto untested hypotheses and specific theories in international economics within the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, and to obtain findings that improve our understanding of the behaviour of relevant economic variables in Sub-Saharan Africa.