Economics of Technology Innovation for Sustainable Growth – With reference to Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

Innovation economics is geared towards harnessing the good in human ingenuity to bring about dynamic efficiency that result in changed habit formation of consumer choices in the market, together with high quality / performance of goods and services consumed by economic agents. In as much as the worries or concern that innovation bring, given its characteristics of creatively destroying existing ideas or product existence in the market, it can still be seen as the way forward in accumulating wealth creation, while increasing welfare opportunities for those who are ready to embrace change in a fiercely competitive environment. Figure 1 below provide a simple illustration of how cost-reducing innovation and technological change can be utilised to bring about positive gains in producer and consumer surplus (Riley, Online) which eventually result in lower prices, and the scope for an increase in real income of households or individuals

Import Substitution Industrialization [ISI]: An approach to Global Economic Sustainability

Globalisation has over the years brought about openness, thus creating an inextricable link among countries through various channels, including trade and investment. Consequently, there has been a substantial expansion in trade in goods and services and the flow of foreign direct investment between developed and developing countries. Even though, both have benefitted from this global openness, the balance of benefits is mainly tilted to developed countries, reinforced by the fact that developing countries have been importing more and exporting less to these countries – a reflection of the under-developed state of their industrial sector, which is evident in their export of mainly unrefined or primary products, with little or no value addition taking place. This gives attestation to the presence of an insignificant import substitution-oriented manufacturing activity in such countries, which have rendered them heavily reliant on imports for their survival – by extension making them highly susceptible to external risks and shocks. This brought about the inception of ISI, which originated from as early as in the 1930s through into the 1960s in Latin America and some parts of Asia and Africa – a notion that was meant to incorporate three stages, namely ‘domestic production of previously imported non-durable consumer goods, extension of production to a wide-range of consumer durables and complex manufactured items and finally, exporting of manufactured goods, with the vision of diversifying to multiple range of items’ (Bussell,, n/d)

Which Demographic Quintile Benefits from Public Health Expenditure in Nigeria: A Marginal Benefit Analysis

Policymakers concur that social investments are crucial, and that inequality must be decreased to accomplish long-term poverty reduction. Nigeria, one of the 20 poorest countries in the world, has a severely unequal society at the moment, with over 80% of the people living in deep, severe, and pervasive poverty, with an estimated 5% of the population possessing 85% of the country’s resources. This article’s focus is on how benefits are dispersed among various demographic groups. Previous data collection does not reflect the present realities of this topic. For this analysis, in southeast Nigeria, data sets from government agencies and for-profit service providers were utilized. The benefits of distinct quintiles were estimated using a marginal benefit incidence analysis. The results show that governmental spending in Nigeria is not pro-poor and that the country’s southeast governments supported spending for the wealthy rather than the poor. The results show, among other things, that investment in health is not well directed; benefits from primary education and primary healthcare appear to be disproportionately dispersed to the upper class in the states studied, as they are throughout Nigeria. The paper serves as an example of the value of benefit incidence analysis (BIA). This article recommends effective targeted discretionary spending to lower systemic poverty and inequality. If education and health spending were more pro-poor, better education and health outcomes, strong governance, high per capita income, and wider access to information would all be more likely

Comparison of Multifactor Asset Pricing Models in the South African Stock Market [2000–2016]

The quest for parsimonious models has been a key objective in asset pricing. However, there appears to be no consensus on the most successful asset pricing strategy in the literature, especially for the South African Market. Using financial statements from January 2000 to December 2015, this article explores how market anomalies affect the performance of securities in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s (JSE’s) resources, industrial, and finance sectors. We investigated the efficacy of several asset pricing models and their capacity to account for market anomalies in the JSE’s resources, industrial, and financial sectors, as well as the applicability of the Fama and French five-factor model. The study used multiple regression techniques and applied stationarity and cointegration methods to ensure robust results. Results also suggest that when the FF5FM is implemented, there is statistical significance at the 10% level for the CMA in the resources sector as the value factor disappears. The FF5FM results in the industrial sector show a significance level of 5% in the SMB. The financial sector seems to have the majority of the style-based risk factors as the SMB is positively significant at a 5% level, the HML is significant at a 1% level, and the CMA is negatively significant at a 10% level of significance. The results suggest that the Carhart Four Factor model is the best to use in all market conditions. Results also show that value becomes redundant in a bullish market, but the opposite holds in a bearish market for a model with operating profitably and investing factors. These findings highlight the necessity for investors to determine which investment risk elements produce abnormal returns in both bearish and bullish market circumstances before investing

Sustainability of the environment and water pollution in Nigeria: Problems, management and policy options

No Abstract. Global Journal of Environmental Sciences Vol. 5(1) 2006: 49-5

Socio-demographic Context of Resilience for Adaptation to Climate Change and Implication for Agricultural Extension in Buffelspruit, South Africa

The study examined the socio-demographic characteristics of smallholder farmers’ and resilience strategies for adaptation to climate change in Buffelspruit, South Africa. The objectives of the study were to determine local resilience strategies used by farmers and examine adoption behaviour in the use of local resilience strategies for mitigating climate change. The study was conducted in Buffelspruit community. A total number of 306 participants were selected randomly for this study. Structured and semi-structured questionnaires were used for data collection. The adoption behaviour of the farmers in the use of local resilience strategies was analysed using the logit model. Crop rotation, crop diversification and the adjustment of planting dates were the resilience strategies used by farmers. The result from the logit analysis reveals that gender (p = 0.047), level of education (p = 0.16), employment (p = 0.043), farm skills (p = 0.058), extension services (p = 0.011) and farm size (p = 0.022) influenced the adoption of climate resilient strategies in the study area. Extension education must move beyond technical training to enhance farmers’ abilities for planning, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership skills to work with multiple stakeholders. Extension must be proactive with capacity development in climate change education.

Biomass Energy Dependence in South Africa: Are the Western Cape Province households descending the energy ladder after improvement in electricity access?

South Africa was considered to have attained universal access to modern energy from 1994 to 2012. This meant that the number of households that moved away from the use of dirty energy to clean energy for domestic activities has drastically increased “ascending the energy ladder”. However, recent trends in household energy consumption in many developing countries are showing many households have either retained or are reversing to fuelwood use despite the modern energy access "descending the energy ladder”. Against this backdrop, the present study evaluates whether or not South African households are still using fuelwood for domestic activities” descending the energy ladder” even after the rapid improvement in electricity access. Both theoretical and empirical literature suggests that households in developing countries often choose their energy type based on certain factors. We take this assumption to test in the Western Cape Province by employing a quantitative cross-sectional survey design involving a structured questionnaire from 1199 fuel-wood household consumers. The findings revealed that electricity access has made households to “move up the energy ladder” instead of “descending the energy ladder "for the reasons of household marital status, size of the household, household income, and employment status of the household. The study recommends more investment in human capital to enable households to have easy access to modern clean energ

Interaction and Main Effects of Finance Support and Other Business Support Services on the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: A Case Study of the Mpumalanga Province, South Africa

Finance support and other forms of business support have been recognized as key factors in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in theoretical and empirical investigations. There is currently a knowledge gap regarding the combined impact of these two variables on the entrepreneurial ecosystem, even though much research has shown that both variables have a favorable influence on entrepreneurial ecosystems. The primary goal of this study is to determine whether the interactions between the two variables—finance support and other business support services—have an impact on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in South Africa. A second objective is to determine the main effects of these variables on the entrepreneurial ecosystem. A standardized questionnaire was used to conduct a study of 2000 SMEs in the South African province of Mpumalanga. To investigate the effects of business support services and finance on the ecosystem as measured by the test instruments, a two-way between-groups analysis of variance was carried out. Depending on their finance index, subjects were classified into three groups: low, medium, and high. There was a statistically significant main effect for finance and other business support services with F(2, 1478) = 26.109, p ≤ 0.001 and F(2, 1478) = 149.552, p ≤ 0.001 respectively. However, the effect sizes were small (partial eta squared = 0.034 and 0.168). Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that the mean scores differed for all the groups in finance support and other business support services. It was found that financial support and other business support would impact the SME ecosystem in South Africa positively if implemented separately but not if implemented interactively. The targets of financial support should be separated from other business support during policy formulation and implementation by the government

Using a Contingent Valuation Approach for Improved Solid Waste Management Facility: Evidence from Enugu State, Nigeria

For most public projects, especially environmental projects that are partly funded by multilateral donor agencies, cost--benefit analysis has become a routine procedure for the approval of project funds. These agencies are very keen to know whether the target community or country possesses the aggregate willingness to pay for the project. The two most commonly applied techniques for such analysis are stated preference and behavioural techniques. In this study, we employ the contingent valuation method (CVM), the most widely applicable of the stated preference methods, to establish empirical grounds for pricing the services of a new solid waste management (SWM) improvement facility in Enugu State, Nigeria, initiated by the UK Department for International Development, the State's Environmental Protection Agency, and State and Local Government Programme. We find that CVM can be fruitfully used to support the design and implementation of new SWM facilities and that analysis of the valuation function can give qualitative information that is difficult to identify using baseline surveys or most conventional economic valuation techniques. Copyright 2008 The author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: [email protected], Oxford University Press.