Water Safety Plan and Water Policy as an Instrument for Improved Quality of Drinking Water in Anambra State, Nigeria

Reliable, safe drinking water and sanitation are the fundamental requirements for people trying to reach their greatest potential in life. Water and sanitation are some of the primary drivers of public health and critical elements in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A country that secures access to clean water and adequate sanitation facilities for the people irrespective of the difference in their living condition has won a huge battle against all kinds of diseases. The study empirically looks at the use of a water safety plan to know the extent to which the water is safe for drinking in Anambra State. This study is a qualitative study which the researcher adopted a descriptive approach to analyze and present data. Primary and secondary sources of data collection was used. A questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection which involves people in the "WASH" communities while the secondary source was materials collected from health workers. The study found that the identified risks in the 2 WASH communities are: dirty fetcher, a dirty tank, dirty environment, no fence around the dug well, dirty concrete floor, cobwebs around the water tank which makes water unsafe for human consumption. The major challenges experienced by the community in providing safe water is the high cost of water treatment and inadequate finance. The study recommended that there is a need for water policy in the state and the country at large to ensure safe drinking water. Keywords: Water policy, Water safety plan, Water quality JEL: Q25, Q28, O18 DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-4-09 Publication date: February 28th 202

Does Terms of Trade Matter for Economic Growth? A Focus on Natural Resource-Rich Sub-Saharan African Countries

The contention that deteriorating terms of trade exists in countries that rely heavily on the exploitation and export of natural resources motivated us in this study. We therefore sought to investigate the impact of terms of trade on economic growth in natural resource-rich sub-Saharan African countries. We carried out the study using annual series that span a period of 1990-2019 under the framework of panel Random and Fixed effects. Our findings indicate that a long run relationship exists between GDP and the explanatory variables used in the study. Results also show that, while cross-section random effects indicates that terms of trade positively impacts on GDP, period fixed effects shows that terms of trade negatively impacts on GDP even though it is not significant. Results of our study also show that in all the models, labour force total and FDI have positive impact on GDP, while trade openness impacts on GDP negatively. We therefore recommend that the SSA natural resource-rich countries should diversify their economies away from the traditional natural resources base. Also human capital should be improved through sound education and training, while all the bottlenecks that constrain the inflow of foreign direct investment should be dismantled

Shocks to Monetary Policy Instruments: Does Credit to the Private Sector Respond in a Similar Manner to Public Sector Credit in Nigeria? A Vector Autoregressive Approach

This paper aims to investigate the response of private and public sector credit to shocks in monetary policy instruments with a view to ascertaining if the responses differ. The study utilized the vector autoregressive (VAR) model with monthly data covering the period from 2010M1 to 2021M8. Findings show that credit to private sector responds positively to shocks in money supply and monetary policy rate (MPR) in all periods. However, the response to cash reserve requirement (CRR) was negative beginning from period five, and it also responded negatively to foreign interest rate shock. On the other hand, credit to government was found to respond positively to shocks in money supply up to period two and CRR in all the periods, but it responded negatively to MPR starting from period three. The results of the variance decomposition show that other than shocks to itself, which was 100% in the first period, shocks to other variables influence private sector credit. Also, other than shocks to itself, which was 99.89% in the first period, shocks to other variables lead to shocks to credit to government. We therefore recommend that policies used to influence financial intermediation should factor in the sensitivity of both public and private sectors to these policy instruments and the impact of exogenous shocks should be factored into policy formulation

Tax-financing of Budget Deficits in LDCs: Re-validation of Laffer Curve Theory

Urgent need for quick action to put Nigeria and other developing economies back to the path of economic recovery has almost imposed state of emergency on these economies. Most LDCs are faced with acute shortage of development funds due to recessions accompanying incessant crashes in international financial market. Raising existing tax rates to finance budget deficit in LDCs often generates public debate on pros and cons of such policy option. Study considered Nigeria as typical case of LDCs. Study focused on establishing the effectiveness of tax-financing of budget deficit under Laffer curve theory. Study spanned across 1970-2015. Data were analyzed using ADF, CUSUM, heteroskedasticity, multiple regression, Johansen cointegration and ECM. Results indicate that: (1) Custom and exercise duties, petroleum profit tax and value-added tax contributed significantly to the reduction in budget deficit while company income tax had nonsignificant impact(2)Total government revenue constituted major chunk of planned income for budget deficit financing(3) Deficit financing of capital health expenditure yielded high returns while that of recurrent education expenditure and capital education expenditure was accompanied by low returns (4)Growth and employment generation accelerated deficit financing while private investment decelerated it (5) There were long and short-run relationships among budget deficit, taxes, human capital investment and macroeconomic indicators with significant rate of adjustment of short-run disequilibrium. Study concluded that tax-financing of budget deficit was effective under Laffer curve effect. It was recommended, among others, that LDCs should enlarge their tax bases through inclusion, to finance budget deficit

Tax-budget Deficit Relationships: Fiscalists’ Platform for Deficit Financing Policy

With heavy debt burden on developing economies accompanied by their low credit worthiness rating, developing economies often resort to taxes for financing development projects. Raising tax rates and expanding tax bases have become frequent government activities in developing economies. Without dynamic deficit financing policy which takes into cognizance the conflicting arithmetic and economic effect of Laffer curve analysis, financing budget deficit through taxation has remained largely unsuccessful. Perhaps, what was required is to constitute latent factors operating along Laffer curve into major theoretical construct of a deficit financing policy. Therefore, study focused on identifying latent factors influencing the inter-relationship among budget deficit finance, taxes, human capital and macroeconomic indicators. Study spanned across 1970-2015. Data were sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistics and World Development Indicators. Data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis. Results indicate that: (1) Tax contributed significantly to budget deficit financing (2)Tax spending and disposable personal income were latent factors influencing the effectiveness of deficit financing (3) Tax spending activated government revenue to contribute significantly to budget deficit reduction (4) Disposable personal income boosted GDP to cause reduction in budget deficit . It was concluded that, with the taxonomy of highly significant factor correlates of tax spending and disposable personal income, a viable deficit financing policy was devised with component tax, budgetary, pricing, credit and macroeconomic policies. It was recommended, inter alia, that developing economies should activate their current deficit financing policies by adapting them to their tax spend and macroeconomic policies

INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF STERILIZATION POLICY IN CONTROLLING MONEY SUPPLY AND CAPITAL INFLOWS IN NIGERIA

Over the last decade, Nigeria has witnessed rising capital inflows that have kept the monetary authorities on their toes. This study, therefore, investigated the effectiveness of sterilization policy in controlling money supply and capital inflows in Nigeria. The need for this investigation arose from observed dearth of study in this area in Nigeria as well as the surge in capital inflows within the study period with its likely macroeconomic implications. The study would answer the question: (1) to what extent does sterilization effort of the Central Bank of Nigeria effective in controlling capital inflows in Nigeria, (2) to what extent is sterilization policy able to regulate money supply in Nigeria. By utilizing monthly data spanning a period of 2010-2018 under the framework of Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS), findings show that the sterilization policy of the CBN is effective in regulating money supply and depressing capital inflows both in period of normal capital inflows and in period of intensive capital inflows. We therefore recommend that in periods of sudden and volatile capital inflows, sterilization measure should be given a priority in order to stave off the negative consequences of such unexpected inflows. We also recommend fiscal prudency on the part of the fiscal authorities, especially within the period of high and volatile capital inflows just as the observance of a synergy between fiscal and monetary policies is not ruled out