Impact of disaggregated public expenditure on inflation rate in selected African countries: A panel cointegration analysis

The study examined the long run association between disaggregated public expenditure and inflation rate in selected African countries with data spanning 1990-2019. The study employed a panel cointegration technique and estimated the cointegrating relationship using the Fully Modified OLS (FMOLS), and Dynamic OLS (DOLS) proposed and advanced by Pedroni (1996, 2001) and Kao and Chiang (2001). The findings from the cointegration result reveal the existence of a long run equilibrium relationship among the variables. Also, the panel dynamic OLS revealed that a 1percent change in infrastructure (capital) and defense expenditures leads to about 0.56 percent and 0.27 percent incremental change in inflation rate respectively. On the other hand, expenditure on education has a positive and an insignificant relationship with inflation, while expenditure on health has an inverse but insignificant influence on inflation rate in the region within the period under study. The study recommends that public expenditure on infrastructure in the selected African countries be appropriately channeled to stimulate investment and production, thereby stabilizing prices

Turning the tide on energy poverty in sub-Saharan Africa: Does Public Debt Matter?

A popular theme in the literature is the examination of a variety of factors that contribute to energy poverty, but little is known about the connection between public debt and energy poverty, particularly for developing regions of the world. This study clearly illustrates the nexus between public debt and energy poverty, focusing on thirty SSA nations from the years 2007 to 2018. In conjunction with disaggregated energy poverty variables such as urban electrification, national electricity access, rural electrification, access to clean cooking fuels, renewable energy utilization and output, a composite energy poverty index was developed using the principal component analysis and estimated in relation to public debt via the Instrumental Variable Generalized Method of Moments approach.Additionally, the effects of a debt threshold are taken into account and their implications for the region's energy poverty are assessed. The main finding of the study reveals that public debt has a positive and significant linear effect on the energy poverty index, national electricity access, urban electrification, rural electrification and access to clean cooking fuels while it reduces renewable energy production and utilization. Thus, our research contributes to the body of knowledge and offers policy recommendations for SSA's targeted reduction in energy poverty through sustainable public debt management

Sustainability Burden or Boost? Examining the Effect of Public Debt on Renewable Energy Consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa

Given that the development of renewable energy is regarded as a sustainable alternative to the realization of environmental quality, it is not surprising that the discussion of the sustainability of the world's energy sources continues to expand. While renewable energy has a negligible impact on environmental degradation, developing regions like sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is restricted by the capital-intensive investment requirements of the burgeoning renewable energy market. To explore the significance of available funding sources on renewable energy development in the region, this study investigates the influence of public debt on renewable energy consumption (REC) in a panel of 29 SSA countries, in full and sub-regional categorizations. A combination of the instrumental variable generalized method of moment (IV-GMM) approach and the two-stage least squares estimator was applied to achieve the goal of the study. Overall, our findings indicate that public debt, carbon emission, financial development, and economic growth exert a negative and significant linkage with renewable energy, while urbanization has a positive and significant influence. Aware of the study findings, appropriate policy prescriptions are proposed to improve the debt-financed funding for the development of the renewable energy sector in SSA

Energy poverty, environmental degradation and agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa

Agricultural productivity remains pivotal to the sustenance of the economies and livelihoods of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. Given the emerging threat of energy and environmental uncertainties globally, this study makes a foray into understanding the link among energy poverty, environmental degradation and agricultural productivity in 35 SSA nations in particular, and the nature of their impacts across the sub-region constituents namely; the Central, Eastern, Western and Southern sub-regional blocs in general. To begin, our identified variables comprised of the following: Energy Poverty Index, derived using the principal component analysis, agricultural value added as a share of GDP served as a measure of agricultural productivity and ecological footprint to represent environmental degradation. Subsequently, the instrumental variable generalized method of moment (IV‐GMM) technique was implemented for the aggregate SSA model, while the IV-two stage least square technique was adopted for the subregional estimations for the Central, East, West and South African blocs respectively. Major findings from the SSA model revealed that whereas the index of energy poverty has a significant positive influence, ecological footprint exhibited an inverse and significant impact on agricultural productivity, while the Central, East, West and South African models yielded mixed results given regional disparities in economic development, regional variations in agricultural productivity and an imbalance of available resources. Policy recommendations were suggested to, among other things, transform the energy, environmental and agricultural fortunes of the region

Pollution, Governance, and Women's Work: Examining African Female Labour Force Participation in the Face of Environmental Pollution and Governance Quality Puzzles

In a rapidly changing world marked by environmental degradation and governance disparities, understanding their impact on African women's participation in the labor force remains a critical puzzle. This research seeks to unveil the intricate connections between pollution, governance quality, and women's economic engagement in Africa, shedding light on vital pathways to empower women, mitigate pollution's impact, and drive sustainable development in the region. Specifically, this study evaluates the impacts of governance quality and environmental pollution on gender economic outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) using data from 28 nations spanning 1996 to 2020. The study employs the dynamic panel threshold model. The key results reveal a negative and significant influence of ecological footprint on female economic participation. Furthermore, the dynamic threshold analysis reveals that environmental degradation undermines female labour engagement irrespective of the threshold level. The study also showed that below the threshold level, the interaction between governance quality variables and the ecological footprint exacerbates the negative impact of the ecological footprint on women's economic participation. Above the threshold level, the interaction between governance quality variables and the ecological footprint mitigates the negative impact. Overall, key recommendations like improved pollution control measures, inclusive governance, and effecting targeted policies and programs to empower women economically, among others, are proffered to contribute to the improvement in governance, environmental sustainability, and gender economic outcomes in SSA

Funding the Green Transition: Governance Quality, Public Debt, and Renewable Energy Consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa

Prompted by the renewable energy funding challenge in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) amid surging public debt in the region, this study investigates the moderating role of governance quality in the relationship between public debt and REC in the region using the Feasible Generalized Least Squares. The study established that public debt positively impacts REC, but the interactive effect of governance quality and public debt impedes REC. Policy prescriptions are put forward to address the funding challenges of transitioning to a green energy future in SSA by highlighting the critical role of governance

Does Public Debt Matter for Human Capital Development? Evidence from Nigeria

An inquiry into the impact of external and domestic borrowings is considered timely for Nigeria, given the growing public debt profile amid deteriorating human capital development. Using data from 1990 to 2021, the study estimates the effects of domestic and external debts on Nigeria's human capital development. The study employed the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and canonical cointegration regression (CCR) as the main estimation technique and the robustness check respectively. The study discovered that domestic and external debt, economic growth and debt servicing exert positive and significant influence on human capital development in Nigeria while environmental pollution has an inverse and significant impact on human capital development in Nigeria. Premised on the outcomes, policy suggestions aimed at enhancing human capital development in Nigeria have been put forward

Tripartite relationship between FDI, trade openness and economic growth amidst global economic crisis in Nigeria: application of combined cointegration and augmented ARDL analysis

Abstract There is general consensuses among scholars on the importance of international trade and foreign direct investment as a main macroeconomic variables that drive economic growth of developing countries. However, the global economic crisis plays dominant role in determining the movement of these macroeconomic variables that can change the nomenclature of economic activities in relation with trade and FDI inflow. For this purpose, this study investigates the relationship between trade openness, FDI inflow and economic growth of Nigeria by accounting for the effects of global economic crisis of 2007–2008 and commodity crisis of 2016 using Bayer and Hanck (in J Time Ser Anal 34(1):83–95, 2013) approach to cointegration and augmented autoregressive distributed lag (AARDL) method on time series data from 1982 to 2018. The results provide evidence that (1) global economic crisis significantly dampens economic growth. (2) The negative interaction of total trade, FDI and global financial economic crisis is substantive enough to dampen the trade-growth and FDI-growth led relationship. (3) The negative interaction of FDI-inflow with global economic crisis is more pronounced and substantive in the long run than the short run. This study recommends for policy option positioned towards escalating specific fiscal measure that should provide a sound legislative rules and reductions in taxes for international investors; stimulus measures targeting measures to control public spending, which had previously fuelled economic expansion

Does public capital expenditure reduce energy poverty? Evidence from Nigeria

Purpose - Given the ever-growing fiscal commitments of Nigeria and her chequered history of electricity generation and distribution, the fortunes of the energy sector in the country have been affected by the prevalence of energy poverty. Government policies such as public capital expenditure (PCE) present a crucial option for reducing energy poverty in Nigeria, providing the research impetus for this study. Design/methodology/approach -To investigate the relationship between government capital spending and five distinct energy poverty proxies, this research applies the Bayer-Hanck cointegration system and the Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound test. Findings -The findings indicate that public capital spending in Nigeria worsens energy poverty by reducing access to electricity, urban electrification, renewable energy consumption, and renewable electricity generation, with a positive but insignificant influence on rural electrification. Originality/value - This inquiry presents a pioneering investigation of the nexus between PCE and energy poverty in Nigeria. Also, aside from the variables of energy poverty adopted by existing studies, this study incorporates renewable energy consumption and renewable electricity output with implications for energy poverty and sustainable development

Energising Environmental Sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa: the role of Governance Quality in Mitigating the Environmental Impact of Energy Poverty

The Sub-Saharan Africa region is disproportionately affected by energy poverty and is considered highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Therefore, addressing the pressing challenges of energy poverty and promoting environmental sustainability in this region is of paramount importance. Consequently, this study appraises the relationship between energy poverty and ecological preservation in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2005 to 2020, using government effectiveness and regulatory quality as moderating variables. A combination of energy poverty indicators and an index of energy poverty computed via the principal component analysis method were applied to identify the link between energy poverty and ecological sustainability. The instrumental variable generalized method of moment technique was applied to address the likelihood of endogeneity issues, and the Driscoll-Kraay approach was employed to check the consistency of the instrumental variable generalized method of moment method. Key findings indicate that energy poverty expands the ecological footprint in Sub-Saharan Africa, leading to ecological deterioration, while the interaction with government effectiveness and regulatory quality further deteriorates the environment. Subsequently, the study provides several recommendations to mitigate the influence of energy poverty on the environment