Determinants and macro-volatility impact of international capital flows in selected sub-saharan African countries

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.International capital flows have been an important subject of discussion in the finance and development literature as well as among policymakers. Discussion on international capital flows is inspired by the associated potential benefits which, in turn, have motivated a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions to liberalise cross-border capital flows and to encourage greater inflows of foreign capital in recent times. The result of these efforts has been the recent surge in capital flows and changes in its composition towards more short-term flows...In this thesis the major determinants of the volume and maturity of foreign capital flows in selected sub-Saharan African countries are investigated. The impact of the volume and type of international capital flows on the volatility of investment, output and consumption growth in the selected countries are also examined. The studies involved dynamic panel and time series regression analyses of data obtained from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The results of the research work are presented as six stand-alone essays

A Survey of Exocentric Compounds in Three Kwa Languages: Akan, Ewe and Ga

Whereas the existence of exocentric compounds is taken for granted in the literature on compounding, there are just a few studies devoted to the nature and types of exocentric compounds cross-linguistically and in African languages in particular, leaving exocentricity in African languages severely under-researched. This paper seeks to contribute to knowledge on exocentricity by exploring the range of exocentric compounds in three Kwa languages – Akan, Ewe and Ga – in the context of the typology of exocentric compounds proposed by Bauer (2008a, 2010) who posited five types – bahuvrihi, exocentric synthetic, exocentric co-compounds, transpositional exocentric and metaphorical compounds. Appah (2016b, 2017b) argued that three of the five types (bahuvrihi, exocentric synthetic and transpositional exocentric compounds) with various subtypes occur in Akan. The equivalent of Bauer’s metaphorical compounds was subsumed under bahuvrihi compounds, while the absence of exocentric co-compounds was argued to be an areal feature, given the observation that co-compounds are rare in Africa (Wälchli 2005). This paper shows that apart from exocentric co-compounds, the rest are found in the languages under discussion to varying extents. All three languages have metaphorical and location bahuvrihi compounds, but the status of the possessor bahuvrihi type is not certain, except in Akan. Ewe has agentive exocentric synthetic compounds, but not the action and patient types, whilst Ga has none. Again, only Ga does not have transpositional exocentric compounds. Finally, it is observed that all the compounds are nouns, notwithstanding the syntactic category of the constituents. This is another potential areal feature.A Survey of Exocentric Compounds in Three Kwa Languages:                                                                                                                                                         1Akan, Ewe and Ga                                         

Evaluation of the effect of hedgerow intercropping using Leucaena leucocephala and fertilizer application on growth and yield of garden eggs (Solanum melongena)

Field trials were conducted in Ghana to assess the effect of applying Leucaena prunings as mulch and N.P.K., 15-15-15 compound fertilizer on the growth and yield of garden eggs (Solanum melongena) during the 1993 minor and 1994 major cropping seasons. The crop was grown with or without Leucaena mulch as well as 0 kg/ha, 180 kg/ha and 360 kg/ha rates of fertilizer. The crop responded very well to the 15-15-15 compound fertilizer used, since plants without fertilizer had significantly reduced height; more days to flowering, fruiting and harvesting and produced yields far below the potential yield levels of the crop. In both seasons, applying the Leucaena mulch increased the mean yield by 21 percent over the no mulch treatments. Economic analysis of the various treatments showed that: producing the crop during the minor season with rainfall was not profitable; producing the crop during the major season was profitable when the half rate of fertilizer, mulched (F1M1 ); full rate fertilizer, mulched (F2 M1 ) and full rate fertilizer no mulch (F2 M0 ) treatments were applied, with the F1M1 ranking first as the most profitable option. This was shown by the comparative net income per hectare of: ¢1,215,000, ¢1,201,020 and ¢819,020 for the (F1M1 ), (F2M1 ) and (F2M0 ) respectively. Producing garden eggs with Leucaena mulch in hedgerow intercropping could reduce fertilizer requirement, at least by half. Hedgerow intercropping with garden eggs is therefore profitable and may become an attractive alternative to small-scale farmers as prices of inorganic fertilizer continue to increase over the years.Journal of Science and Technology (Ghana) Vol. 27 (2) 2007: pp. 62-7

Lexical inventiveness in Ghanaian socio-political discourse: The form, meaning and motivation for dumsor and dumsor-based neologisms

Lexical expansion may be triggered by different factors. A recent case of protracted intermittent power outages in Ghana gave rise to dumsor, an Akan word which means 'turn off' and 'turn on'. This word spawned many neologisms, some of which became part of the political discourse in Ghana at the time. However, very few of the neologisms are actually in use because the situation that gave rise to them no longer exists and the formation of most of them was purely jocular. Based on data collected from Facebook posts and status updates, this paper discusses what is called the dumsor lexicon and the morphological and sociolinguistic motivations for the formation of the dumsor-based neologisms. First, we observe that the motivation for the linguistic behaviour that spawns such neologisms is consistent with the lightheartedness of Ghanaians. We show that the neologisms fall into various semantic classes and that the morphological processes of compounding and affixation are employed predominantly but dumsor itself is partially anglicized and the affixes employed in the derivation of the neologisms are of English origin, because Akan, from which dumsor emanates, lacks equivalent affixes. Additionally, we observe that the use of English affixes could be because the originators of the neologisms either did not know alternative processes in Akan that could yield the same result or possibly did not find them useful because of the multilingual setting of the platform. Thus, we argue that the morphology of the neologisms and the range of items and concept they refer to betray the possible social backgrounds of the originators of the words and the multilingual setting of the linguistic behaviour

On the syntactic category of Akan compounds

In accounting for the properties of morphological constructions, one may adopt a source-oriented view where every property of the whole emanates from the parts or a product-oriented view where the whole may have properties that do not come from the parts. Such properties are called holistic constructional properties. Studies on Akan compounds have been invariably source-oriented, assuming that every property in a compound, including the syntactic category, has to come from its constituents. I show that compounding in Akan is blind to the syntactic category of the constituents. Thus, notwithstanding the syntactic category of the constituents the Akan compound is invariably nominal. This paper, therefore, provides evidence of holistic properties of morphological constructions in the form of the syntactic category of Akan compounds. I also present a Construction Morphology modelling of the syntactic category of the Akan compound as a holistic constructional property which is inherited from a constructional meta-schema that is pre-specified to be nominal. Finally, I posit and exemplify four schemas which inherit the category N from the meta-schema but differ in terms of the presence and position of a head constituent

Management of Ghana’s modified taungya system:Challenges and strategies for improvement

Since 2001, Ghana has introduced a number of forest-based strategies to improve the livelihoods of forest communities, restore the country’s forest cover and address timber deficits. Among these strategies is the modified taungya system (MTS). Through a mix of qualitative methods, field observations, and a household survey among 146 MTS farmers from eight villages in the Tano Offin, Tain II and Yaya Forest Reserve areas in the high forest zone, this paper explores the challenges related to MTS management in Ghana. Results indicate that the lack of regular income from timber until tree harvesting, the delay in signing MTS agreements, the absence of a clear mechanism for sharing the 40 % timber benefits among individual farmers, restrictions on tree and crop species allowed under the MTS, and inadequate support and supervision from the implementing agency demotivate farmers to invest labour in farm maintenance. The study also reveals that the quality of partnership among the actors impacts on the performance of the scheme: a co-management arrangement exclusively between the Forestry Commission and MTS farmer groups generated poorer results in terms of the quality of the timber stands, income-generating potential and motivation of the actors involved. The continued commitment of both participating farmer groups and coordinating agencies is key to the performance of the MTS. Lastly, the prospects for future income from timber revenues determine to a large extent farmers’ commitment to tree maintenance in the MTS. Linking up with the concepts of interactive and landscape governance and partnerships, the authors make recommendations to overcome these challenges

Determinants of Capital Flight In Ghana

The study investigated the short-run and long-run determinants of capital flight in Ghana using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) estimation technique. The long-run and short-run results show that real GDP growth rate, higher domestic real interest rate over foreign interest rate, financial development, good governance and strong property rights reduce capital flight, while external debt to GDP leads to increase in capital flight in Ghana. However, lagged external debt to GDP and lagged financial development had negative and positive effect respectively in the short-run. The study recommends that government should adopt more pro-growth policies and resort to domestic borrowing to reduce external debt. The Central Bank of Ghana should improve on the development of the financial sector and ensure competitive domestic interest rates. It is also recommended that Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in Ghana should continue to ensure accountability and transparency to strengthen the interest of domestic investors

Lexicalization of Akan Diminutives:: Form, Meaning and Motivation

This paper examines transparent and non-transparent diminutive forms in Akan and the range of meanings associated with each group, as presented in Appah/Amfo (2011). It takes the discussion of Akan diminutives a step further by showing that some of the meanings communicated by transparent diminutive forms are dependent on the context, including the semantic properties of the base to which the diminutive morpheme is attached. In addition, it demonstrates that even though the non-transparent diminutive forms communicate diminu-tive meanings and contain what appears to be the Akan diminutive morpheme, synchronical-ly they are formally unanalyzable since the putative diminutive morpheme cannot be deline-ated from the base. Also, it is argued that these forms have come from a lexicalization pro-cess that resulted in the reanalysis of the base+diminutive morpheme as a single unanalyza-ble unit. It is observed that the process of lexicalization could have been facilitated by a number of factors, including the loss of the bases from the language, which meant that the putative base could only be found in the context of their diminutive use. Finally, the lexical-ization process is schematized using formalism from Construction Morphology.This paper examines transparent and non-transparent diminutive forms in Akan and the range of meanings associated with each group, as presented in Appah/Amfo (2011). It takes the discussion of Akan diminutives a step further by showing that some of the meanings communicated by transparent diminutive forms are dependent on the context, including the semantic properties of the base to which the diminutive morpheme is attached. In addition, it demonstrates that even though the non-transparent diminutive forms communicate diminu-tive meanings and contain what appears to be the Akan diminutive morpheme, synchronical-ly they are formally unanalyzable since the putative diminutive morpheme cannot be deline-ated from the base. Also, it is argued that these forms have come from a lexicalization pro-cess that resulted in the reanalysis of the base+diminutive morpheme as a single unanalyza-ble unit. It is observed that the process of lexicalization could have been facilitated by a number of factors, including the loss of the bases from the language, which meant that the putative base could only be found in the context of their diminutive use. Finally, the lexical-ization process is schematized using formalism from Construction Morphology