This study examined financial structure and economic growth of contemporary African economies; evidence from Nigeria. The specific objectives of this study are to investigate the effect of financial structure in bank credit to the private sector ratio (BC), market capitalization ratio (MC), liquid liability ratio (LLR), turnover ratio (TR) and value of traded share (VTS) on economic growth variable in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The study was anchored on bank based and market-based theory. The study used secondary data obtained from World Bank Data Atlas and subjected them to Granger Causality technique to test the interaction between independent variables and the dependent variable at the 5% level of significance. The findings show that financial structure in BC, MC, LLR, TR and VTS had no significant effect on GDP in the contemporary African economies. The result further discovered that there was absence of long run relationship in the study. Thus, the study concludes that financial structure does not have significant effect on economic growth in the contemporary African economies. Hence, the study recommends that financial structure should strengthen and enhance availability of money supply to key sector of the economy thereby improving economic growth by ensuring financial deepening within the economies and providing viable economic environment for financial enhancement to boost investment activities within the Nigerian economy.
Keywords: Bank credit, GDP, Market Capitalization, economic growth, financial structure
