Could wagner’s law explain over-indebtedness in Africa?

This study deals with Wagner’s law for 52 countries in Africa. We consider 6 panels and individual countries. Panels are based on 5 Regional Economic Communities (REC) and the full sample. Panel unit-root, panel cointegration and panel ARDL analysis reveal Wagner’s elasticity evidence for full sample and 2 RECs and evidence for error correction. Wagner’s law holds for the most successful RECs and for 98% of individual countries. Procyclical behavior of public spending, the long-term economic growth and embezzlement increase over-indebtedness risk in Africa. Raising the scores of the government quality indices is part of debt sustainability in Africa.