Gauging the Impact of Openness on Sustainable development in Nigeria: Evidence from FM-OLS and ARDL approaches to Cointegration

This paper considers the nexus between trade openness and sustainable development in Nigeria from 1996 to 2019 by employing Fully Modified Least Square (FMOLS) and Autoregressive Distribution Lags (ARDL) techniques. Our results suggest that trade openness has a significant positive impact on sustainable development and is Nigeria's economic pillar of sustainability. The paper also reveals a significant disparity in magnitude and sign of the parameters when ARDL is used. In the long run, openness to trade has a significant positive impact on sustainable development in Nigeria, implying that an increase in trade openness will improve sustainable development in Nigeria. The effect of the age dependency ratio is insignificant inverse, showing that it does not affect sustainable development. Furthermore, in the short run, except for trade openness and age dependence ratio that has a significant effect, all other independent variables are not statistically significant. The paper concludes that trade openness positively impacts sustainable development in Nigeria. The paper's hypothesis is likely to trigger a fresh conversation on how to promote sustainable development and so mitigate environmental risks

Does Financial Inclusion Moderate CO2 Emissions in Sub-Saharan Africa? Evidence From Panel Data Analysis

The threat posed by climate change has become a reality in the public sphere. This research looks at how financial inclusion affects carbon dioxide emissions in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries from 2004 to 2017. The panel autoregressive distributed lag and panel granger causality approaches are used to determine if financial inclusion reduces CO2 emissions in Sub-Saharan African countries. The PARDL results demonstrated that, over time, financial inclusion, GDP per capita, industrialization, and trade openness have a substantial beneficial influence on carbon emissions in SSA countries. The result suggests that these considered variables contribute significantly to CO2 emissions while urbanization and energy intensity reduce CO2 emissions in SSA. Financial inclusion and other control variables have no significant impacts on carbon emission in SSA in the short run. The findings of the granger causality test further confirm the direction of causality, revealing that financial inclusion, GDP per capita, industrialization, energy intensity, and trade openness, granger cause carbon emission in SSA countries. Meanwhile, carbon emission does not granger cause any of the considered factors. The study concludes that financial inclusion increases carbon emission in SSA countries, given the poor state of financial inclusion. Our findings advocate for a policy framework that would focus efforts on connecting financial inclusion measures with environmental legislation across SSA nations