Trade Liberalisation and the Formal-Informal Sector Dichotomy in Nigeria

This study assesses the role of trade liberalization on the formal-informal sector of Nigeria It looks at whether or not the trade liberalization process have any effect on both the reduction in the wage differential between registered and non-registered roughly formal and informal workers and the fall in the proportion of registered workers The study uses both secondary and primary data via the administration of questionnaires to discuss the channels through which trade liberalization could affect these two variables and put forward an empirical approach to test the existence of any correlation between them The results suggest that the fall in the wage gap between registered and non-registered workers in the manufacturing sector was affected by trade-related variables particularly by the import penetration ratio However we do not find robust evidence that trade liberalization had a substantial effect on the fall in the proportion of registered worker

Community Stakeholders' Perspectives on Poverty Alleviation in a University Town

Poverty is pervasive in Nigerian communities and is entrenched in both rural and urban centres. Nigerians see hope in the locating of institutions as means of improving livelihood. The paper studies the stakeholders I approach to poverty alleviation in a town where a private mission university is sited. Using the technique of correlation supported with bootstrapping, stakeholders' responses indicate that education is a key factor in poverty alleviation as it is a cause and solution. Public sector investment is required in the areas of road and energy. and youth participation is required for programmes to succeed. Stakeholders' perspective is also affected by the kind of education they have received and management of intervention programmes must be by agreement and understanding between them. The paper recommends the increase in the opportunities to be made available for the indigent indigenes to be empowered by formal or vocational education. There is also a need for transparency in stakeholders I management of intervention programmes to ensure complete success

Trade Openness, Institutions and Economic Growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

A major discourse in literature is that one of the causes of the limited growth effects of trade liberalization is the weakness of institutions. The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of trade openness and institutions on economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Institutions are crafted by man to create a peaceful habitation and reduce uncertainty in the exchange of values; and they play key roles in the management of economies in recent years. The study is significant considering the fact that trade and institutions have been found to exert some measure of influence on the growth of countries. However, evidence has shown that not much has been done in relating institutions to trade in SSA. The study employed econometric analyses involving the Panel Unit Root, Least Square Dummy Variables (LSDV) and the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) techniques for the period 1985-2012 on thirty selected SSA countries. Secondary data were used for the estimations. The major findings of the study revealed that institutions had a significant positive impact on economic growth but trade openness only had a little significance on growth in the selected SSA countries. Therefore, the study recommended that the SSA countries should ensure that funds be channeled appropriately to projects of economic importance so as to further develop their institutions to have meaningful impact on economic growth. These SSA countries should also create conducive economic and political environments that will engender free international trade between them and other countries of the world. Keywords: Institutions, Trade Openness and Economic Growth

Fiscal federalism and accountability in Nigeria: an ARDL approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between fiscal federalism and accountability in Nigeria. Corruption is a global plague and is endemic in nature. Several policies have been adopted by the Nigerian Government to institutionalize accountability and combat the scourge of corruption that have hindered socio-economic progress but to no avail. Design/methodology/approach – Thus, this study examined fiscal federalism and accountability issues in Nigeria using secondary data and used the auto-regressive distributed lag econometric technique to analyse the data. Findings – The results from this study reveal that fiscal federalism fails to mitigate corruption in the long run in Nigeria because of poor bureaucratic quality (BQ) and ineffective law and order (LOR). Social implications – Fiscal decentralization must be accompanied by legislations that will strengthen BQ of fiscal institutions at subnational levels and promote effective LOR. Originality/value – This study recommends that for fiscal federalism to mitigate corruption in the long run, government must adopt appropriate policies to improve BQ and further strengthen LOR in Nigeria. The finding also suggests that to promote public sector accountability in Nigeria, government should ensure the simultaneous decentralization of expenditure and revenue to lower tiers of government. This study provides detailed empirical evidence that fiscal decentralization without accountability will accentuate public sector corruption, and in the long run, weaken local economic development initiative to boost growth and development

Capital Flight and Poverty Reduction in Nigeria

The literature from development economics asserted that two major spillover effects of the prevalence of capital flight and low rate of investment in developing economies are the persistent increase in unemployment and absolute poverty. Since an increase in the poverty rate can be viewed in terms of forgone private and public investment in some poverty reducing programmes like education, health intervention and job creation. Thus, this study investigates the interplay between capital flight and poverty reduction in Nigeria using secondary data covering the period between 1981 and 2017. This study employs the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test; Philip Perron (PP) test; Kwiatkowski, Phillips, Schmidt and Shin’s (KPSS) all forms of unit root tests; Johansen test for co-integration and Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS) for long run estimates. The study found that an increase in poverty level in the country would be preceded by raising capital flight coupled with increasing dependence ratio and decline in economic growth rate. In this scenario, the effect of a single digit economic growth is dissipated once the circle continues unabated. Consequently, this study recommends that the Federal Government of Nigeria through the relevant financial authorities should enforce regulation against illicit flow of capital and prosecute offenders. The Federal Government must be seen to support the agency efforts against illicit flow in the country

Electricity Consumption and Human Capital Development in Nigeria: Exploring the Implications for Economic Growth

This study examined the multiplier effect of human capital development through the usage of electricity power for maximum productivity to enhance economic growth in Nigeria. The study engaged data sourced from the World Development Indicators (WDI) for the period 1981-2016, and the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) econometric method was engaged for the analysis. Results from the study showed that, human capital development is insignificantly related to the economic growth in Nigeria, while electricity consumption is significantly linked with economic growth. Therefore, the study recommended that there is a need for the government to develop human capital via the improvement of the educational and health facilities in the country as well as provide electricity in the rural and urban areas for maximum productivity. Keywords: Human Capital, Electricity Consumption, Economic Growth. JEL Classifications: F63, I15; I25; L94 https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.675

Electricity Consumption and Human Capital Development in Nigeria: Exploring the Implications for Economic Growth

This study examined the multiplier effect of human capital development through the usage of electricity power for maximum productivity to enhance economic growth in Nigeria. The study engaged data sourced from the World Development Indicators for the period 1981-2016, and the fully modified ordinary least squares econometric method was engaged for the analysis. Results from the study showed that, human capital development is insignificantly related to the economic growth in Nigeria, while electricity consumption is significantly linked with economic growth. Therefore, the study recommended that there is a need for the government to develop human capital via the improvement of the educational and health facilities in the country as well as provide electricity in the rural and urban areas for maximum productivity. Keywords: Human Capital, Electricity Consumption, Economic Growt

Electricity Consumption, Government Expenditure and Sustainable Development in Nigeria: A Co-integration Approach

The government incurs both capital and recurrent expenditures so as to bring about the development of the Nigerian economy. Coupled with this is the fact that electricity power plays an important role in ensuring that aggregate output increases and the welfare of the people is affected positively. This study sets out to examine the long run relationship between electricity consumption, government expenditure and sustainable development in Nigeria employing the Johansen co-integration, Vector Error Correction Mechanism (VECM) and Granger causality estimation techniques. Secondary data were obtained from Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and World Development Indicators (WDI) from 1980 to 2017. The results obtained from the study showed that government recurrent expenditure, gross fixed capital formation have a positive and significant relationship with GDP per capita in the long run. However, electricity consumption, government capital expenditure and total labour force had a negative but significant effect on GDP per capita in the long run. Hence, this study recommended that the government and relevant agencies should ensure that projects undertaken are profitable and people oriented. Also, strategies to improve electricity supply, government expenditure on capital and labour productivity should be encouraged. Keywords: Capital and Recurrent Expenditure, Electricity Consumption, Sustainable Development JEL Classifications: F61, I15, I25, L92 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.754

Challenges of accountability in Nigeria: the role of deposit money bank

practices, thereby resulting in high-level corruption cases in the banking sector. The purpose of this study is to investigate the short- and long-run linkages between bank net interest income and deposit liabilities interacted with corruption, to establish the influence of corruption in deposit mobilisation drive of banks in Nigeria. Also, the study analysed the causal relationship between selected bank variables and fraud. Design/methodology/approach – The study used quarterly data on selected variables from 1Q 1993 to 4Q 2017 sourced from Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) annual reports and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin of various issues. Deposit Money Bank various deposit liabilities are interacted with a corruption index and used as the independent variables, while bank earnings serve as the dependent variable. Error Correction Model (ECM) and Engel Granger approach to co-integration technique were used to analyse the data. Findings – The findings reveal that various bank deposit liabilities interacted with corruption index has a negative effect on bank profitability in the long run, though only corrupt fixed deposit is statistically significant at the 5 per cent significance level. Bank total asset, total loan and advances and fraud have a significant effect on bank profitability at 1 and 10 per cent significance level. The findings also reveal that banks profit from corrupt fixed deposit and demand deposit in the short run. Social implications – Text Originality/value – The literature is awash with bank lending corruption and various institutional factors such as competition among banks, credit bureau and information sharing about borrowers, bank supervisory policies, loan loss provisioning, bank ownership structure and regulatory environment and anti-corruption measures. The aspect of deposit mobilisation and corruption has not been well researched in literature; this study, therefore, fills the gap in the literature by examining the extent deposit money banks contributed to corruption in Nigeria through their cutthroat deposit mobilisation drive

Green Economy and Food Security in Africa

The study is carried out with the objective of making contributions to the policy debate that is vital and relevant towards achieving sustainable development goals of ending poverty (SDG1), ensuring adequate food and nutrition (SDG2), promoting health and well-being (SDG3), ensuring sustainable management of water and sanitation (SGD6), building sustainable cities (SDG11), reducing emissions that cause climate change (SDG13), and protecting life in the ocean (SDG14) and on land (SDG15). The study used information from various data sources. This study made use of the data obtained from three main sources, notably, the FAO—Food and Agricultural Organization, CPIA—Country Policy and Institutional Assessment and WDI— World Development Indicators to accomplish its goals. The data for the analysis cover the range of 2005 to 2020 for African countries that members of the International Development Association (37 nations). To handle the problem of endogeneity, they applied the GMM— generalized method of moments. Findings revealed that when the economy is green, the state of food security increases. It proves that one proportionate increase in a green economy may lead to the improvement of food security in Africa by 0.24%. The findings from the GMM show that as an economy becomes greener, the condition of food insecurity reduces. In conclusion, the study submits that it is required for all relevant stakeholders to focus on policy and strategies to reach green economic growth