Investigating the causal relationship between economic growth, trade openness and the depth of the banking sector: Case study of the D8 Group Countries

Achieving economic growth plays an important role in determining countries economic power. Therefore, it is particularly important to recognize and examine the factors that influence economic growth. The depth of the banking sector and trade openness are important factors influencing economic growth. In this study, the unit root test of the IPS was used to examine the significance of the variables. After rejecting of co-integration between variables using Pedroni and Kao test to examine the causal relationship between depth of the banking sector, trade openness and economic growth, the Granger causality model of panel data during the period 1980-2020 in 8 D8 member countries has been used. Therefore, for the depth of the banking sector, a composite index obtained from the Principal Component Analysis method and for economic growth and trade openness, two indexes of GDP and total exports and imports in terms of GDP are used, respectively. The results confirm the existence of a one-way causal relationship from trade openness to economic growth. Other results show that the causal relationship between economic growth and the depth of the banking sector has not been confirmed; The findings also indicate that there is no causal relationship between trade openness and the depth of the banking sector in the countries studied.