Zimbabwe’s Macroeconomic Policies, Economic Growth and Development of the Financial Sector: A Post Independence Historical Overview

Abstract

The paper presents and examines the economic policies that Zimbabwe has employed since its attainment of political independence from Great Britain in 1980. The liberation struggle was undertaken mainly to free the country from capitalism and replace it with the socialist ideology which was assumed to be an all-inclusive economic policy. We apply a theoretical economic policy analysis approach to assess the impact of the country's policies used since 1980 on the growth and development of the financial sector. The research data used in the study were mainly drawn from monetary policy statements (MPS) and national budgets for the period under investigation.The economic policies used were found to be very good in theoretical principle but their politicization, nepotism, corruption, and lack of financial back-up led to inconsistencies and their negative impact on growth and development prospects of the financial sector since the year 1980.