Macroeconomic policies and agricultural development in developing countries: lessons from emerging economies

This paper brings to the fore the macroeconomic policy issues in emerging and developing countries with respect to agricultural development. By exploring theoretical and empirical evidences, it describes the macroeconomic tools that have been deployed by various governments of selected emerging and developing nations especially between 2000 and 2010. The major findings are that emerging countries like Brazil, China and India have systematically manipulated macroeconomic tools in either jumpstarting or fast-tracking their economic development. It recommends that in order to foster development, developing countries need to learn to manipulate macroeconomic policies relating to taxation, trade, government expenditure and exchange rate

Productivity Growth, Wages and Employment Nexus: Evidence from Nigeria

The nexus amongst productivity growth, employment and wages have generated debate in literature. Nigeria has witnessed increase in economic growth rate in the last decade which some scholars termed as jobless as unemployment has been growing all along. Therefore, this study joins this debate to investigate the impact of the growth on labour market performance in Nigeria using auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL). The main advantage of this approach lies in the fact that it can be applied irrespective of whether the variables are I (0) or I (1). The ARDL revealed that using the RGDP (productivity growth), E (employment) and RW (real wages) as dependent variable, there is an existence of long run relationship. Also, it was showed that the output growth does not translate into employment gains both in the short and long-run while the influence of wages is not statistically significant. The implication is that the wages do not adjust to reflect the cost of living both in the short and longrun. The work suggested amongst others that government should aim to integrate employment and wages into the growth system both in the short and long run through targeting variable such as interest rate. Keywords: productivity growth; wages; employment; Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL

FISCAL FEDERALISM AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NIGERIA

Persistently, it is being insinuated that Nigerian federalism is one of the major challenges hindering the country’s economic growth and development. This study analysed the effects of fiscal federalism on the growth of the Nigerian economy. This study made use of data on annual revenue allocations to the federal, state, and local governments, and annual investments, as the independent variable, and annual real Gross Domestic Product as the dependent variable. The study employed the Ordinary Least Square method for estimation, and the Augmented Dickey-Fuller Unit Root Test to check for the statistical properties of the variables. The results show that it is only at the federal level that allocation is positive and significant. At the local government level, the allocation is positive but not significant and at the state level, it is even negative but not significant. Recommendations were made to improve the impact of fiscal federalism on economic growth in Nigeria; among such include the establishment of agencies to check for fraudulent activities in the lower levels of government, and a development of self-sustainable income levels by the lower levels of government

FORMAL CREDITS ACCESS AND FARMERS WELFARE IN PLATEAU STATE, NIGERIA

This is an analysis of the impact of credits from formal financial institutions on the welfare of farmers in Plateau state Nigeria. The study used survey research design and the instrument of questionnaire to capture input variables, output data and welfare data. Data was partly fitted into the Cobb-Douglas production function for analysis to ascertain the impact of credit on productivity, and welfare data were analyzed through descriptive statistics. It was found that credit available to farmers in Plateau state is inadequate to significantly raise farm productivity and hence the welfare conditions of farmers. It was further found that profitability, Net farm Income and welfare status of borrowers were slightly higher than that of non-borrowers. The study therefore recommends a renewed commitment of both government and formal financial institutions towards improved quality and quantity of credit to farmers so as to boost output and welfare conditions of the farmers in the state. Keywords: Credit, Welfare, Farmer

Analysing Rural-Urban Disparity in Access to Safe Toilet in Nigeria

This study examines the socio-economic determinants of access to safe toilet facilities in Nigerian households. It also investigates the factors responsible for rural-urban disparity in accessing safe toilets among Nigerians. It uses the 2013 Demographic Health Survey (DHS) on Nigeria for all the analyses. Binary and Ordered Probit Regressions Models as well as Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition were used to determined factors affecting access to safe toilet facilities in the country. The results shows that, households head age, marital status, gender, household size, education, wealth index, locations, ethnicity and geopolitical variations are the significant determinants of households’ access to safe toilets in Nigeria. While, household size, rural locality, zones, gender, and lower wealth index have negative impacts; households head age, marital status, ethnicity and education level, have positive effects on the households’ access to safe toilets in the country. Secondly, differences in the age of households head, household size, wealth index, gender, zones and marital status are the factors responsible for the rural-urban variation in access to safe toilets in Nigeria. The study recommends poverty reduction programmes, public-private partnership, provision of public toilets, rural development, educational improvement, cultural and value re-orientation and social security programme among others as measures to improve access to safe toilet facilities in the country. Keywords:Safe toilets, socioeconomic, probit, Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition and socio-economic development

Access to Electricity and Drinking Water in the Presence of Ethnic Diversity: Evidence from Nigeria

ABSTRACT The study analysed the effects of ethnic diversity on access to drinking water and electricity in Nigeria. Our analysis indicates that ethnic diversity at the sub-national level has reduced households’ access to safe drinking water, but increased provision of electricity. The implication of the finding is that provision of targeted public goods are more prone to negative effects of ethnic diversity than non targeted public goods. Ethnic diversity will increase provision of public goods due to increased lobbying by the various ethnic groups. The study recommends that the national government should provide targeted public goods in heterogeneous countries