Interest rate reforms, financial deepening and economic growth in Cameroon: an empirical investigation

The impact of interest rate reforms on financial deepening and growth in Cameroon is examined. We employ five proxies of financial deepening against deposit rate, a proxy for interest rate reforms. The impact of interest rate reforms on financial deepening is sensitive to the proxy used for financial deepening. The impact is almost negative and significant for all the indicators, except for the ratio of broad money to Gross Domestic Product, where it is positive and significant in the first lag. This means that financial repression helps improve broad money and hinders the development of the other indicators of financial development in Cameroon.