Public Social Expenditure Mix and Economic Growth in Nigeria

Armed with the need for optimum balance in Nigerian government expenditures on social sector of the economy and the need to find out economically why the effect of the increasing government expenditures is not reflecting on the economic development of Nigeria in comparison with other economies with even less social spending, this study was carried out to find out the interaction effect of education and health expenditure on economic growth. Secondary data from CBN statistical bulletin and World Bank was used for the estimated using the Autoregressive Distributive Lag model (ARDL) and the study found that though the interaction term is highly significant, it is negative, even, in the midst of positive individual effect of education expenditure and health expenditure on economic growth in Nigeria. This is a wide prove that the current mix of education and health expenditures in Nigeria is harmful to the economy and there  is an urgent need to fashion out a better mix if possible. There is also a need for to establish an optimum education and health expenditure mix, since, the current mix has been found to be statistically significant. Keywords: education expenditure, health expenditure, economic growth, interaction, government expenditur

Inequality and female labour force participation in West Africa

This study examined the impact of income inequality on female labour force participation in West Africa for the period 2004 to 2016. The study employed the Gini coefficient, the Atkinson index and the Palma ratio as measures of income inequality. For robustness, the study also utilises female employment and female unemployment as measures of female labour force participation. The study employed the instrumental variable fixed effects model with Driscoll and Kraay standard errors to account for simultaneity/reverse causality, serial correlation, groupwise heteroskedasticity and cross-sectional dependence. The empirical results reveal that the three measures of income inequality significantly reduce the participation of women in the labour force in West Africa. The study also revealed that domestic credit, remittances and female education are positively associated with female labour force participation in the sub-region. Further findings reveal that economic development reduces the participation of women in the labour force in West Africa with the U-shaped feminisation theory not valid for the West African region. The study, however, revealed an inverted U-shaped relationship between inequality and female unemployment. Policy recommendations based on these findings are discussed

Financial Deepening, Private Domestic Savings and Per Capita Gdp Growth in Nigeria

A general way of evaluating the economic welfare or living standards of country is through its per capita GDP, This study investigates empirically the impact of financial deepening on per capita GDP growth, the interaction effect of financial deepening and private domestic savings on Nigeria’s GDP per capita growth and how per capita GDP respond to shocks in financial deepening in Nigeria. Financial deepening is represented by, the ratio of private sector credit to gross domestic product (PSC/GDP). This study used quarterly data from 1986 to 2014 and was generated from both the CBN (2015) statistical bulletin and World Bank (2015) database. Concerning the Impact of Financial Deepening on GDP per capita and the Interaction effect of private domestic Savings and Financial deepening on GDP per capita, ARDL model was implore,. This thesis therefore, makes a modest contribution to the literature having identified that  financial deepening can contribute to GDP per capita growth, if there is an improvement in domestic resources mobilization, and efficiency in capital allocation in the country. Simply put, these results appear to reveal that various financial development policies have not contributed enough to Nigeria’s per capita growth. However, if government and financial institutions can encourage mobilization of domestic savings; develop credit and equity markets; minimise financial risk; and ensure efficiency of capital allocation, Nigerians can benefit from the deepening of the financial sector and domestic savings in the long-run development of the country

Ecological footprint, urbanization, and energy consumption in South Africa: including the excluded

The study explores the relationship between ecological footprint, urbanization, and energy consumption by applying the ARDL estimation technique on data spanning 1965–2014 for South Africa. After applying the unit root test that accounts for a break in the data, the Bayer and Hanck (J Time Ser Anal 34:83–95, 2013) combined cointegration test affirms cointegrating relationship among the variables. Findings further reveal that economic growth and financial development exact a deteriorating impact on the environment in the short run. However, the same was not true for both energy use and urbanization. While urbanization and energy use promote environmental quality in the long run, financial development and economic growth degrade it further. The long-run findings of our study are confirmed to be robust as reported by the fully modified OLS (FMOLS), dynamic OLS (DOLS), and the canonical cointegrating regression (CCR) estimates. The direction of causality supports the energy-led growth hypothesis for South Africa. Policy outcomes and directions, and the possibility of promoting sustainable growth without degrading the environment are discussed

Ecological footprint, urbanization, and energy consumption in South Africa: including the excluded

Abstract: The study explores the relationship between ecological footprint, urbanization, and energy consumption by applying the ARDL estimation technique on data spanning 1965–2014 for South Africa. After applying the unit root test that accounts for a break in the data, the Bayer and Hanck (J Time Ser Anal 34:83–95, 2013) combined cointegration test affirms cointegrating relationship among the variables. Findings further reveal that economic growth and financial development exact a deteriorating impact on the environment in the short run. However, the same was not true for both energy use and urbanization. While urbanizationand energy use promote environmental quality in the long run, financial development and economic growth degrade it further. The long-run findings of our study are confirmed to be robust as reported by the fully modified OLS (FMOLS), dynamic OLS (DOLS), and the canonical cointegrating regression (CCR) estimates. The direction of causality supports the energy-led growth hypothesis for South Africa. Policy outcomes and directions, and the possibility of promoting sustainable growth without degrading the environment are discussed

The Impact of social infrastructures on economic growth of Sub-Saharan Africa: implications for sustainable economic growth

Background: Economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa has consistently remained the least when compared to any other region in the world. Countries in the region have received a lot of grants in form of aids to boost their capital accumulation; yet there is slow growth in most parts of the region. Many countries have implemented the World Bank and IMF suggested policies; and majority of the countries have adopted democratic political system. Yet growth in the region has remained very low. It then becomes pertinent to identify the causes of the low economic growth pattern in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The objective of this study, therefore, is to determine the impact of social infrastructure on economic growth of sub-Saharan Africa.Data and methods: The data for this study were 2001-2017 time-series data sourced from World Governance Indicators (WGI) and World Development Indicators (WDI). The standard panel data of fixed effect (FE) and random effect (RE) were employed in the analysis of the data, while Hausman test results guided the final choice of fixed effect estimation.Findings: The results show that corruption is statistically and significantly affecting economic growth of sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. This means that control of corruption will help boost the economies in the region as low corruption is a prerequisite for economic recovery and sustainable development. Besides, trade openness, labour supply, and general government consumption significantly affect economic growth in SSA.Conclusion: SSA countries should control corruption as well as open their economies so as to reap the positive effects of economy of scale derived from diversification