The Effect of Global Oil and Gas Prices and Production Fluctuations on the Economy of Nigeria

Once a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, crude oil production now experiences a paradigm shift, abundant for domestic consumption and export, signaling a lasting global oil price transformation. Despite a surge in U.S. hydrocarbon production and weakening oil prices, imports from Nigeria dramatically dropped from 1.5 million barrels per day in 2006 to 0.2 million in 2013, ceasing entirely by early 2014. Consequently, Nigeria faced a sudden depletion of trade surpluses and reduced foreign reserves. This study delves into the immediate and long-term challenges confronting Nigeria, particularly examining the impact of recent oil and gas price fluctuations on key macroeconomic factors. Findings highlight the balance of payments' high elasticity to oil price shifts and low elasticity to money supply changes with a coefficient of determination of 78.69%. Additionally, the exchange rate shows low elasticity to oil price changes and moderate elasticity to money supply variations with a coefficient of determination of 82.80%

The Effects of Wireless Mobile Phone Technology on Economic Growth in Nigeria

The market in the telecom industry is often segmented into three categories namely long distance, local and wireless services. In their survey, Green and Teece (1998) used this approach to study the telecom market segmentations of the United Kingdom, Australia, United States and New Zealand. In line with its policy of openness, transparency, fairness and participatory regulation, the commission informed stakeholders in September 2012 of its intent to conduct a study on the level of competition in the relevant markets of Nigeria’s Telecommunications Industry. It held meetings with a cross section of industry operators. This study shows that as the availability of mobile phone technology increases, the volume of import increases and more technology is transferred. Thus, the findings by Freund and Weinhold (2002, 2004) and Arrow (1969) are reconfirmed by the study’s empirical result. Therefore, technology helps to reduce distributional inequality of economic benefits. In fact, this does not necessarily imply reduction in inequality among rich and poor classes of these societies in the respective rich and poor states. The finding suggests that the availability of mobile phone technology increases state economic growth by different marginal weights. However, these marginal weights statistical significance across the states in both 90% and 95% confidence intervals could not be ascertained because the covariance has to be estimated using bootstrap. It is therefore left for future research

Financing and Supply Chain Operations Resilience and Juxtaposing: The Role of Finance in Improving the Supply Chain in the COVID-19 Pandemic Environment

Amidst the renewed quest for supply chain resiliency, finance outgrows its traditional role in B2B; instead, finance position itself to become a more integrated partner in supply chain management activities. Areas such as global trade management and supply chain risk management are fluid areas for finance to flourish, coupled with increasing demands for finance to take a more active role in supply chain management. The global supply chain has experienced several disruptions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme climate change-induced events, natural disasters, conflict, financial crises, recessions, shortages of raw materials for manufacturing, and macroeconomic imbalances; however, futuristic disruptions are already projected by several stakeholders in the logistics and transport sector. Hence, companies must concentrate on building their resilience to all manner of supply chain disruptions. The initial motive of firm management to increase leverage and engage in financial goods is diminished when the economic dilemma of supply chain value is resolved; by so doing, the internal financial situations could facilitate the advancement of enterprise value. Keywords: supply chain, financial service innovations, distribution dimension, COVID-19 DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/15-7-01 Publication date: April 30th 202

Integrated Pest Management and Protection Practices by Limited Resource Farmers

This article focuses on the perceptions of limited resource farmers (LRFs) on integrated pest management (IPM) and protection practices. Data were collected from 90 LRFs in the Alabama Black Belt and analyzed by descriptive statistics. The results revealed that most farmers used pesticides and practiced crop rotation and other practices, yet a majority was not familiar or inadequately familiar with IPM. It is recommended that instituting a coordinated or seamless IPM education program on a long-term or continuing basis will enable the LRFs to be well familiar with and also practice IPM on a sustained basis

The Impact of Selected Socioeconomic Factors on Amount of Earned Income Tax Credit Received by Low-Income Rural Residents

This paper examines the impact of selected socioeconomic factors on amount of earned income tax credit (EITC) received by low-income rural residents. Using a questionnaire, data were obtained from a convenience sample of 82 respondents in South Central Alabama, and were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The results showed that the average amount of EITC received was $1470; a majority of recipients were females, younger, with lower education, lower household incomes, and single. In addition, gender had a statistically significant (p<0.05) effect on the amount of EITC received, with females receiving more EITC than males. Since females received more EITC than males, they could be specifically targeted to participate in programs, such as individual development accounts, that encourage low-income people to save. They could, at least, save part of their credit as they have relatively more disposable income and this will allow them to build wealth. Keywords: EITC, low-income, rural residents, socioeconomic factor

ESTIMATING DEMAND FOR RECREATIONAL FISHING IN ALABAMA USING TRAVEL COST MODEL

Individuals and households reveal their willingness to pay to enjoy environmental and natural resource services by engaging in outdoor recreation activities. The state of Alabama and the Black-Belt region possess significant recreational fishing resources whose qualities could be improved through public and private management innovations. To measure the value of such interventions, a baseline estimate of recreational fishing demand and potential for increasing the demand by on-site improvements needs to established. Using direct mail survey, count data obtained on individual angler characteristics, expenditures on fishing equipment, and destinations and expenditures on time and travel for each trip taken. In addition, the kinds and quantities of fish that anglers sought on each trip were obtained. This paper employs a full a full economic analysis based on recreation demand models—a.k.a. Travel Cost models (TCM). The travel costs’ Negative Binomial regression reveals that the average number of fishing days demanded is 33.17days, while other demographic and site characteristics have varying effects on the number of fishing days demanded

Multiple social identities cloud norm perception: Responses to COVID-19 among university aged Republicans and Democrats

Most work on social identity, defined as one’s sense of self derived from membership to social groups, focuses on a single identity and its behavioural consequences. But a central insight of social identity theory is that people belong to multiple social groups, derive self-esteem from multiple identities and care to conform to the norms for those identities. However, very little work has turned its attention to understanding when and how multiple social identities interact. We motivate hypotheses with a framework that extends a social identity model to include multiple identities. Using a longitudinal sample (N > 600) of university students located throughout the US, we use university social identity, and the associated university norms, to characterize COVID related social distancing norms between April and October of 2020 and then unpack how another identity, the student’s political identity, impacts perception of those norms. Despite incentives to do otherwise, we find that beliefs about university norms differ depending on the respondent’s political identity. We relate our results back to a model of social identity. Significance Statement: During the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, norms surrounding precautionary behavior, i.e. hand washing, mask wearing, and so on, quickly emerged and subsequently became highly politicized. In this study, we find evidence that political identity affects one’s ability to perceive university-level norms even when there are incentives in place to focus on those norms and when there are, through government enforced restrictions, forces coordinating behaviour. These results suggest that one’s identities may impact each other, such that one identity obscures an actor’s ability to accurately perceive the norms of another identity, even when there are salient incentives for accurate judgment.This study is funded by the National Science Foundation (For Rice University, SES-1534403 and SES-2027556; for Texas A&M: SES- 2027548, SES-1534411, and SES-1530796; for the University of Michigan: SES-2027513).http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/175161/1/When_identity_clouds_norm_perception__PAPER Nov 2 2022.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/175161/2/When_identity_clouds_norm_perception__ APPENDIX Add Analysis Nov 2 2022.pdfDescription of When_identity_clouds_norm_perception__PAPER Nov 2 2022.pdf : Main articleDescription of When_identity_clouds_norm_perception__ APPENDIX Add Analysis Nov 2 2022.pdf : AppendixSEL

An Innovative New Approach to Animal Care

Agricultural communities in rural areas often difficulty to attain expedient information and resources for their animal health issues. Most veterinarians are usually more than an hour away from the farmers, and in most cases animal health issues are only addressable through phone conversation. Advances in technology have enabled many human health problems to be investigated through telemedicine approaches, and it is believed that a similar approach could improve access and quality of veterinary care, especially in remote locations. The appropriate application of telemedicine can enhance animal care in rural communities by facilitating expedient communication, diagnostics, and possible treatment recommendations, client education improvement, vet visit scheduling, and other tasks. In addition, a telemedicine system could be linked to a strong distance education program that could provide multi-media resources for consumers so that they cannot just solve a crisis, but they can be better informed and thereby prevent medical crises. This project seeks to expand a web-based system and smart device app that will serve as a distance learning and a telemedicine tool to assist farmers in getting immediate support and reaching veterinary care professionals and extension agents. We believe that this service will be a powerful tool to assist animal producers in managing their animals, and to provide them the ability to obtain possible solution for problem they may encounter. We accomplish this by providing access to a database with any smart media device. This database contains simple to understand information with accompanying videos and pictures