Causal relationships between bank credit to the private sector, total deposits and gross domestic product in Ecuador

The investigation was oriented to determine the relationship between private credit, total deposits and gross domestic product in the economy of Ecuador. The study is contextualized in the quantitative epistemological approach, the positivist paradigm. The type of research is correlational, supported by a documentary, non-experimental, retrospective and longitudinal design, taking as a source of information the quarterly data of the Central Bank, in the period 2007-2022. For data processing, the Granger causality test was used, which allowed the determination of short- and long-term relationships in the period 2007T1 -2022T3, to later complement the analysis with the Engle-Granger Cointegration test to verify the existence of a long-term relationship between the variables to estimate the cointegration vector and validate it by fulfilling the Gauss -Markov assumptions. The results show that there is no bidirectional causality between the variables under study, but they are cointegrated in the long term at the level of their growth rates, since they are not stationary and have become integrated of order (1), this should to the low percentage of credit to the private sector with respect to GDP, even more so that allocated to productive activities, this is reflected in the miniscule participation of the financial sector GDP in total GDP, going from 2.55% in 2007 to 3.59% in 2019.