Bounds testing approach: an examination of foreign direct investment, trade, and growth relationships

Purpose: This paper examines the long-run impact of foreign direct investment and trade on economic growth in Ghana. Methodology: Using an augmented aggregate production function (APF) growth model, we apply the bounds testing (ARDL) approach to cointegration which is more appropriate for estimation in small sample studies. The data span for the study is from 1970 to 2002. Findings: The results indicated the impact of FDI on growth to be negative which is consistent with other past studies. Trade however was found to have significant impact on growth.Ghana; ARDL cointegration; unit roots; equilibrium-correction; FDI; Trade

Modelling and Forecasting Volatility of Returns on the Ghana Stock Exchange Using GARCH Models

This paper models and forecasts volatility (conditional variance) on the Ghana Stock Exchange using a random walk (RW), GARCH(1,1), EGARCH(1,1), and TGARCH(1,1) models. The unique ‘three days a week’ Databank Stock Index (DSI) is used to study the dynamics of the Ghana stock market volatility over a 10-year period. The competing volatility models were estimated and their specification and forecast performance compared with each other, using AIC and LL information criteria and BDS nonlinearity diagnostic checks. The DSI exhibits the stylized characteristics such as volatility clustering, leptokurtosis and asymmetry effects associated with stock market returns on more advanced stock markets. The random walk hypothesis is rejected for the DSI. Overall, the GARCH (1,1) model outperformed the other models under the assumption that the innovations follow a normal distribution.Ghana Stock Exchange; developing financial markets; volatility; GARCH model

Bivariate causality analysis between FDI inflows and economic growth in Ghana

The main objective for this paper is to study the causal link between FDI and GDP growth for Ghana for the pre- and post-SAP periods. We also study the direction of causality between the two variables, based on the more robust Toda-Yamamoto (1995) Granger no-causality test which allows the Granger test in an integrated system. Annual time-series data covering the period 1970-2002 was used. The study finds no causality between FDI and growth for the total sample period and the pre-SAP period. FDI however caused GDP growth during the post-SAP period.Ghana; FDI; seemingly unrelated regression; Granger causality; cointegration

Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana

On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. The disease was christened COVID-19 and the pathogen (an RNA virus) identified as SARS-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2).1,2 The virus is primarily spread through contact with small droplets produced from coughing, sneezing, or talking by an infected person. While a substantial proportion of infected individuals may remain asymptomatic, the most common symptoms in clinical cases include, fever, cough, acute respiratory distress, fatigue, and failure to resolve over 3 to 5 days of antibiotic treatment. Complications may include pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome.3 Over five million confirmed cases of COVID-19 has been recorded globally with more than 300,000 deaths as at 25th May 2020. The United States of America has recorded the highest number of cases with more than 1.5 million and over 100,000 deaths.4 In Africa, more than 90,0000 cases have been reported with about 3,000 deaths. South Africa has recorded the highest number of cases with 23,615 cases and 481 deaths. Ghana confirmed its first cases of COVID-19 on 12th March 2020 and had as at 25 May 2020 recorded over 7,000 cases with 34 deaths.5 &nbsp

Aggregate Import demand and Expenditure Components in Ghana:An Econometric Analysis

In this paper, the behaviour of Ghana’s imports during the period 1970-2002 is studied using disaggregated expenditure components of total national income. We use the newly developed bounds testing approach to cointegration and estimated an error correction model to separate the short- and long-run elements of the import demand relationship. The study shows inelastic import demand for all the expenditure components and relative price. In the long-run, investment and exports are the major determinant of movements in imports in Ghana. In the short run household and government consumption expenditures is the major determinant of import demand. Import demand is not very sensitive to price changes

Comparative Study of Covalent and van der Waals CdS Quantum Dot Assemblies from Many-Body Perturbation Theory

Quantum dot (QD) assemblies are nanostructured networks made from aggregates of QDs and feature improved charge and energy transfer efficiencies compared to discrete QDs. Using first-principles many-body perturbation theory, we systematically compare the electronic and optical properties of two types of CdS QD assemblies that have been experimentally investigated: QD gels, where individual QDs are covalently connected via di- or poly-sulfide bonds, and QD nanocrystals, where individual QDs are bound via van der Waals interactions. Our work illustrates how the electronic, excitonic, and optical properties evolve when discrete QDs are assembled into 1D, 2D, and 3D gels and nanocrystals, as well as how the one-body and many-body interactions in these systems impact the trends as the dimensionality of the assembly increases. Furthermore, our work reveals the crucial role of the covalent di- or poly-sulfide bonds in the localization of the excitons, which highlights the difference between QD gels and QD nanocrystals.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figure

African video movies and global desires: A Ghanaian history by Carmela Garritano (review)

Joseph Oduro-Frimpong is on the faculty of Ashesi University CollegeOne of the key defining features of most Ghanaian video movies is that they are embedded—either explicitly or implicitly—in Pentecostal Christian aesthetics. Fittingly, a major research perspective, situated at the juncture of religion and film (and pioneered by Birgit Meyer), elucidates how the movies draw on shared Pentecostal beliefs and practices to mediate themes on occult practices. In African Video Movies and Global Desires: A Ghanaian History, Garritano, motivated by her apt identification of the video movies’ “unrestrained and unruly heterogeneity” and their concomitant multiple narrative forms, examines a subject with which scholars have so far not explicitly engaged.2 This characteristic of the video movies as a “shifting and historically contingent discursive field marked by myriad ideologies, anxieties, discourses, and desires” enables the author to explore a historical narration of the Ghanaian movie industry through analyses of selected video movies.3 This [End Page 151] approach allows the author to show the connection between the economic circumstances that gave rise to the industry and the manifestation of these same conditions within the movies’ themes—centered on poverty, work, and gender—that the first generation of producers explored. Here, the author teases out the ways in which the movies normalize and refashion “dominant discourses of globalization, gender and sexuality, neoliberalism, and consumerism.”4 In the same breath, she also emphasizes the manner in which the innumerable number of movies made since the inception of the industry in the 1980s generates a certain ambivalence toward these same themes. The approach also enables the author to explore and elaborate on multiple visual texts and their “variations in aesthetics, narrative form, modes of spectator engagement [as well as] [their] anxieties, desires, subjectivities, and styles.”5 This discussion is in the introduction to the book. In this same section, Garritano presents the book’s thematic focus, offers a short historical overview of the initial negative critiques of video movies by African film and literature scholars, and addresses the global aspirations of the industry’s players when she adopts the term Ghallywood. Additionally, the introduction includes a succinct summary of the five chapters that make up the book. The introduction together with the conclusion provide the theoretical lens of contextual criticism that underpins this work and the historical approach that the author adopts to investigate the huge changes that have occurred in the Ghanaian video-movie industry

A Time Series Analysis of Determinants of Private Investment in Ghana (1960-2010)

In recent time, Ghana has embarked on policies that aim to rebalance the role of public and private sector in the economy and thus emphasize private sector development. This paradigm shift is to encourage private investment and ultimately make private sector the engine of growth. The study is a time series analysis of private investment in Ghana covering annual data set from 1960-2010.  The study employed the techniques of co-integration and error correction modeling, which provided mechanisms to deal with the problems of unit root faced in time series data. In all, the study provides evidence that inflation, exchange rate, public investment, GDP, trade openness, aid, credit and external debt both in a short run and long run significantly affect the level of private investment. Also applying the general to specific approach to error correction model, statistical results suggested the existence of stable long run co-integrating relationships between macroeconomic and other variables and private investment. Key words: Ghana, Inflation, Private Investment, Exchange Rate, Aid, Credit, External Deb

Assessing the Life Insurance Industry in Ghana

Insurance has a crucial role to play in every economy. In Ghana, there have been a number of disasters resulting in loss of life and property. This paper attempts to assess the life insurance industry in Ghana through a sample of 330 customers of life insurance companies operating in the Kumasi Metropolis. The study revealed that life insurance companies find it difficult to settle claim payment and subject customers to long processing period while some settlement end up in court. 70% of the customers do not received feedback after lodging complains. These insurance companies however collect their premium promptly. Keywords: insurance, effectiveness, satisfaction, claim, premiu