European Journal of Research and Reflection in Management Sciences Vol. 4 No. 2, 2016
ISSN 2056-5992
Progressive Academic Publishing, UK Page 16 www.idpublications.org
TOWARDS A GRADUAL APPROACH TO LIBERALIZE INTEREST RATE: HOW
THIS PROCESS IS BENEFICIAL ON CREDIT ALLOCATION AND
INVESTMENT?
Benhabib Abderrezak & Mostéfaoui Sofiane & Prof. Yousfat Ali
University of Adrar, ALGERIA
ABSTRACT
One of the many indicators that conduct the investment decision is the interest rate. The latter
has been generally defined via different channels of conception. The financial conception
states that interest rate is the time value of money or the reward to put aside your money in
attempt to get revenue in the future. The economic conception means that the interest rate is a
proxy showing how well the credit allocation mechanism and the mobilization of financial
resources are. In this context two mechanisms are adopted: the economic mechanism and the
official one. The former considers the movements of the interest rates as conducive to the
various investment decisions (independent variable) while the second view regards the
interest rate as dependant variable following the investment behavior (dependant variable).
This paper sheds light on the venues through which the difference between the deposit and
lending interest rates impact the investment decision via credit allocation mechanism.
Keywords: Interest rate, deposit rate, lending rate, investment.
INTRODUCTION
The philosophy of credit allocation refers to the meaning of rationality and choice earlier laid
down by philosophers of political economy. In this sense, credit is an economic item
exploited in an attempt to satisfy a want. Therefore, the rationality implies the good direction
of this mean towards its best uses. The economic theory suggests that individuals need to
maximize the benefits from the usage of their credits, the fact that enhances these agents to
expand their economic activities by a recurrent incentive (the psychological incentive of
doing business). Investment is one of the important determinants of growth and prosperity. It
generates value added, technology and realizes the social welfare by decreasing the
unemployment rate and achieving the social harmony. The conception resides in mapping the
ways on which the economy attains the high levels of investment both in terms of quality
(allocation paradigm) and quantity (efficiency paradigm). In this context, interest rate plays a
major role in determining the magnitude of the investment decision because it is the capital
driver of the financial resource needed to engage in business activities. Herein there is a
controversy about managing the interest rate in such a way that increases at maximum the
benefits of its manipulation strategy. The issue is to determine the behavior wanted of the
interest rate whether to liberalize it or to fix it. The purpose of all this is to find out the
optimal interest rate that directs the financial resources towards their best allocation which
implicitly mean a high degree of investment benefits.
Interest rate and investment: ways of transmission
The relationship between investment and investment is a fertile groundwork for research and
investigation both at micro or macro levels. Macroeconomics considers that the investment
volume decreases with the increase of the interest rate. The reason behind this is that the
interest rate is a cost of borrowed funds necessary for doing investments and as the costs