The Determinates of Financial Development in Iraq

his paper examines the effect of factors on the development of commercial banking in Iraq. Seven factors used as determinates for financial depth which are per capita GDP, inflation rate, government budget deficit, share of state-owned banks of total assets as proxy of financial repression, oil sector domination, international trade openness and political stability as explanatory variables against the banking development as endogenous variable. By using VAR model, empirically the paper found that the per capita real GDP, the degree of openness and share of state-owned banks of total assets are the variables stimulated the financial depth in Iraq during 1980 and 2010. However other variables did not register any influence for financial development in Iraq. In addition, the paper found unidirectional relationship between financial development and economic growth run from real sector to financial sector.