Climate change and inclusive growth in Africa

Africa’s pursuit of inclusive and sustainable economic growth is impeded by many challenges, including climate change, whose effect is most apparent in the continent’s tropical regions. To this end, this study investigates the impact of climate change on achieving pro-poor economic growth in Africa. Predicated on poverty-inequality-climate analysis, the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) estimator is used to analyse data from 1996 to 2020 covering 51 African countries. The results reveal that climate change significantly impedes inclusive growth. Furthermore, evidence of a long-lasting negative effect of climate change on inclusive growth, which could be attributed to a lack of coping mechanisms among the poor and vulnerable groups, is found. Finally, the findings show a marginal impact of institutional quality and government spending on inclusive growth in the face of climate change. The study recommends more climate mitigation efforts and enhanced adaptation mechanisms, especially for the poor, as they are most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change

Inclusive growth in Africa:do fiscal measures matter?

In recent times, Africa has experienced remarkable economic growth; nonetheless, this advancement remains far from being considered inclusive, given the persistently high levels of poverty and income inequality across the continent. To this end, this study investigates the role of fiscal policy measures on inclusive growth using absolute and relative pro-poor measures of growth. The study utilizes panel data from 48 African countries spanning the period 1996 to 2020 and employs the Panel System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) technique for analysis. Estimation results reveal a concerning trend where public debt service exacerbates both poverty and income inequality, underscoring the adverse consequences of mounting public debt pressures in the region. Interestingly, while government expenditure reduces inequality and worsens poverty, an increase in taxation reduces poverty but worsens income inequality. Further, an increase in taxation negatively affects the income shares of the bottom and middle-income groups while the top-income groups benefit. The findings of this study have significant policy implications for improving inclusive growth in the continent

The Financial Development-Environmental Degradation Nexus in the United Arab Emirates: The Importance of Growth, Globalization and Structural Breaks

This article revisits the nexus between financial development and environmental degradation by incorporating economic growth, electricity consumption and economic globalization in the CO2 emissions function for the period 1975QI-2014QIV in the United Arab Emirates. We apply structural break and cointegration tests to examine unit root and cointegration between the variables. Further, the article also uses the Toda-Yamamoto causality test to investigate the causal relationship between the variables and tests the linkages of the robustness of causality by following the innovative accounting approach. Our empirical analysis shows cointegration between the series. Financial development increases CO2 emissions. Economic growth is positively linked with environmental degradation. Electricity consumption improves environmental quality. Economic globalization affects CO2 emissions negatively. The relationship between financial development and CO2 emissions is U-shaped and inverted N-shaped. Further, financial development leads to environmental degradation and environmental degradation in turn leads to financial development in the Granger sense

The Financial Development-Environmental Degradation Nexus in the United Arab Emirates: The Importance of Growth, Globalization and Structural Breaks

This article revisits the nexus between financial development and environmental degradation by incorporating economic growth, electricity consumption and economic globalization in the CO2 emissions function for the period 1975QI-2014QIV in the United Arab Emirates. We apply structural break and cointegration tests to examine unit root and cointegration between the variables. Further, the article also uses the Toda-Yamamoto causality test to investigate the causal relationship between the variables and tests the linkages of the robustness of causality by following the innovative accounting approach. Our empirical analysis shows cointegration between the series. Financial development increases CO2 emissions. Economic growth is positively linked with environmental degradation. Electricity consumption improves environmental quality. Economic globalization affects CO2 emissions negatively. The relationship between financial development and CO2 emissions is U-shaped and inverted N-shaped. Further, financial development leads to environmental degradation and environmental degradation in turn leads to financial development in the Granger sense

The Diffusion of ICT for Corruption Detection in Open Government Data

Corruption occurs in many places within the government. To tackle the issue, open data can be used as one of the tools in creating more insight into the government. The premise of this paper is to support the notion that data opening can bring up new ways of fighting corruption. The current paper aimed at investigating how open data can be employed to detect corruption. This open data is trivial due to challenges like information asymmetry among stakeholders, data might only be opened partly, different sources of data need to be combined, and data might not be easy to use, might be biased or even manipulated. The study was conducted using a literature review approach. The reviews implied that corruption can be detected using Open Government Data, Thus, by conducting the open data technique within the government, the public could monitor the activities of the governments. The practical contribution of this paper is expected to assist the government in detecting corruption by using a data-driven approach. Furthermore, the scientific contribution will originate from the development of a framework reference architecture to uncover corruption cases

Research methods in economics and its implications for capital formation

We explore whether public or private capital augments or obstruct Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows by decomposing Domestic Capital Formation (DCF) into private and public capital formation. To this end, we apply Cross-Sectional Autoregressive Distributed Lags (CS-ARDL) approach to analyze panel time-series data. Our empirical results show that public capital crowds in FDI inflows while private capital crowds out FDI inflows. However, institutional quality significantly attracts FDI inflows for less developing economies. We argue that private and public capital possess different attributes; thus, clubbing them together might result in aggregation bias. We observe a strong connection of good institutional quality with private and public capital to augment foreign capital inflows for developing countries in the long run. Besides, our empirical results suggest that returns are high with quality institutions, especially for developing regions. Our result estimations provide several policy implications

The effects of electricity consumption, economic growth, financial development and foreign direct investment on CO2 emissions in Kuwait

This study examined the empirical effects of economic growth, electricity consumption, foreign direct investment (FDI), and financial development on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in Kuwait using time series data for the period 1980–2013. To achieve this goal, we applied the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach and found that cointegration exists among the series. Findings indicate that economic growth, electricity consumption, and FDI stimulate CO2 emissions in both the short and long run. The VECM Granger causality analysis revealed that FDI, economic growth, and electricity consumption strongly Granger cause CO2 emissions. Based on these findings, the study recommends that Kuwait reduce emissions by expanding its existing Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage plants; capitalizing on its vast solar and wind energy; reducing high subsidies of the residential electricity scheme; and aggressively investing in energy research to build expertise for achieving electricity generation efficiency

Foreign direct investment, stock market capitalization and sustainable development: Relative impacts of domestic and foreign capital

It is well acknowledged that achieving sustainable development goals without negatively impacting a country's economic activity is complicated. The question of whether foreign or domestic capital can be used to address the financial demands of the nations who lack the financial resources for a green transformation should now be resolved. Based on this, the main goal of this research is to analyze the impacts of domestic and foreign capital on carbon emissions for a heterogeneous panel of 42 countries for the period from 1990 to 2017. Aside from capital accumulation, the environmental impact of elements such as economic growth, urbanization, trade openness, and energy usage are also studied. The newly developed quantile via moment approach is utilized to isolate the impacts according to the countries' emission levels. Finally, the impact of these variables on the recently constructed sustainable development index is investigated in order to ensure its robustness. The findings of the study reveal that the environmental efficiency of domestic capital accumulation in countries with low emission levels is higher than in countries with high emission levels. Foreign capital, on the other hand, has no substantial effect on emission levels in all quantiles

Financial Markets, Innovations and Cleaner Energy Production in OECD Countries

Using a large sample of 25 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, we provide evidence that the growth of equity and credit markets promotes cleaner energy (biomass renewable energy, non biomass renewable energy, and total bio and non-bio renewable energy) production in those countries. We also find that the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) adversely affects the production of cleaner energy. Our results are robust to alternative definitions of financial market development, cleaner energy, and controlling for the effect of government subsidy on cleaner energy. By supporting the demand-induced supply of cleaner energy, we demonstrate that the positive and significant effect of financial market development (FMD) on cleaner energy is stronger in countries with higher growth in carbon intensity and a lower availability of fossil fuels than otherwise. Our results also support the argument that financing uncertain projects such as those that produce cleaner energy should be greater in countries with a higher innovation culture than those where financial markets are already accustomed to undertaking risky investments. The overall results are also robust under the conditions of short-run and long-run homogeneity and the cross-sectional dependence in the sample. Policy implications are also provided

Impact of Russia–Ukraine conflict on Russian financial market: Evidence from TVP-VAR and quantile-VAR analysis

This study aims to analyze the repercussions of the Russia–Ukraine conflict on the Russian financial market, focusing on the main stock market and sectorial stock indices. High-frequency hourly data from September 12, 2021, to April 29, 2022, covering the period before and after the outbreak of conflict, is utilized for analysis. The empirical investigation employs the TVP-VAR and Quantile-VAR connectedness approaches. Our findings indicate a significant impact of the conflict on the Russian stock market, leading to increased market risk during the event period. Notably, certain sectors, including oil and gas, utilities, metals & mining, financials, consumer goods, and services exerted more influence on other sectors, while chemicals, transport, and telecoms were influenced by other sectors. These insights are crucial for comprehending the financial implications of the ongoing conflict on the local economy, providing valuable guidance to portfolio managers, investors, and policymakers in devising effective financial strategies