Determinants of Remittance: Panel Evidence From Selected Countries In Africa

The African continent has over 30 million people in the Diaspora and sends over 50 billion US Dollars to theirfamilies and communities back home ahead of FDI and ODA. It is on this premise that this study carries out aninvestigation on the determinants of Remittance across 21 African countries with neat selection from all theregions. The study uses the GMM estimation in a dynamic panel to find out that Remittance receipt of theprevious year, broad money growth, taxes, inflation, lending rate and age dependency ratio are significantdeterminants of remittance, while GDP per capita and real effective exchange rate are not. However, while broadmoney growth, tax revenue, GDP per capita, and real effective exchange rate are inversely related to Remittancereceipt, lending rate, age dependency ratio and inflation are positively related.Keywords: Determinants, Remittance, Africa, Dynamic panel

Disparity in Catastrophic Healthcare Expenditures Across Households’ Income Groups in Nigeria: The Lens of Foster-Greer-Thorbecke Poverty Indices

The Nigeria health care system seems to have continue in the downturn trend as a result of the decay in public health care system and this have continued to drive the rising health care financed by out-of-pocket expenditure health hence, the study examined the disparity in Catastrophic Healthcare expenditures across Households income groups in Nigeria using the Nigeria Health and Demographic Survey 2018. The study employed the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke indices and the logit model. Findings from the study showed that some household and individual characteristics are associated with catastrophic health expenditure in Nigeria. Many households experience catastrophic health payments due to factors such as age, education of household head, health insurance status, geo- political zone, type of health facilities visited, and type of illness suffered. Governments are yet to find fair and innovative ways of financing the health system so as to reduce the financial burden of out-of-pocket payments on households and individuals in Nigeria. There is also urgent need for increased financial protection as well as insurance coverage through small credit and rural households’ contribution scheme as an alternative to the National Health Insurance Scheme to enhance health financing option that could reduce the huge private health cost of out-of-pocket expenditure. There is need for pressure on the legislature to provide a bill that disallow health care tourism for public office holders abroad as way of checkmating the better health care system in Nigeria. Keywords: Health care, Inequality, Income groups, private health cost, households DOI: 10.7176/JESD/13-20-03 Publication date:October 31st 202

A combined electrochemical and DFT investigation of ornidazole as a benign anti-corrosion agent for carbon steel materials in acidizing environments

The corrosion inhibition performance of ornidazole was investigated as an eco-friendly option during the acid cleaning of carbon steel using potentiodynamic polarization (PDP) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in combination with density functional theory (DFT) simulations. The inhibition efficiency was noted to rise with a rise in ornidazole concentration and exposure time. The maximum inhibition efficiency after 0, 1 and 7 days were attained at 1.6 g/L with values of 93.8, 96.2 and 98.7 %, respectively. Potentiodynamic polarization revealed that indazole is a mixed-type corrosion inhibitor. EIS indicates and increase in corrosion resistance with ornidazole concentration. SEM/EDX were consistent with the electrochemical results and indicate that ornidazole inhibits steel corrosion by surface adsorption which was consistent with Langmuir adsorption isotherm (R2 = 0.9999). The values of Kads indicate that ornidazole is more strongly adsorbed with an increase in concentration of ornidazole. The values of ΔGads (−5.69 to −11.75 kJ/mol) indicate that the adsorption is spontaneous. The inhibitory properties were found to be related to the molecular properties indicated by theoretical insights from DFT simulations which revealed susceptible adsorption sites on the ornidazole molecules from the deduced quantum descriptors, natural population analysis, density of states and molecular electrostatic potential. The results herein indicate that ornidazole is a suitable corrosion retardant for carbon steel in acidic environments