Application of Statistical and Mathematical Algorithms to Data Analytics and Job Creation in Nigeria

In this paper, we examine the use of statistical and mathematical algorithms in data analytics and their application in business intelligence, insights and collective intelligence, for enhanced job creation interventions in Nigeria. The paper argues that the demand-driven job creation, involving developing skills for existing vacancies or opportunities is no longer sustainable in the current challenging economic conditions. Rather it makes a case for supply-driven job creation, where skills are developed in technology and data analytics (with strong reliance on statistics and mathematics), with a view to solving business and corporate problems, thereby enhancing job creation in those businesses and corporations, which hitherto had no vacancies. The paper surveys statistical and mathematical algorithms, categorized as supervised and unsupervised learning techniques, applied in data analytics, and discusses the emerging requirements for data analytics in modern business and corporations. It further discusses modern application of data analytics in a number of business areas such as marketing, customer management, finances, data mining, web and learning, highlighting a number of metrics specific to each sector. The paper also identifies the specialized skills required to create job opportunities in key sectors in Nigeria. Drawing extensively from the lead author’s experience in the UK, the paper presents how skills in modern data analytics can lead in creating job opportunities, a major lesson for Nigeria. Keywords: Job Creation, Data Analytics, Data Science, Business intelligence, Insights, Algorithm

Shadow Banking and Central Bank’s Growth Support Initiative in Nigeria: Facts and the Evidence

The empirical evidence about shadow banking and central bank’s monetary intervention to improve liquidity in Nigeria remains largely anecdotal. However, the role played by both in the build-up to and aftermath of the 2007 – 2009 global financial crises, mostly in the advanced economies is thoroughly acknowledged in the literature. This paper investigates the dynamic relationship between shadow banks in Nigeria and central bank’s monetary policy, using the ARDL Bounds testing approach to cointegration. The study reveals the existence of a short run associationship, but not so in the long run which reveals the absence of a standard condition, implying little or no relationship between shadow monetary policy and shadow banking. This study, therefore, recommends that the central bank continues to be innovative in the ways shadow banks are incentivized in order to improve financial inclusion. Keywords: Shadow Banking, Shadow Monetary Policy, ARDL Cointegration, Error-Correction, Growth Supporting Intervention, Bounds Test, Financial Inclusion, JEL Classification: G20, G21, G22, G23, G2

On the stability of the money multiplier in Nigeria: Co-integration analyses with regime shifts in banking system liquidity

The study hypothesized the existence of regime shifts in the conduct of monetary policy, occasioned by changing liquidity conditions in the domestic banking system in Nigeria. Within the context of this prognosis, the study tests the stability of the money multiplier, utilizing methodological procedures that allow for the explicit consideration of regime shift bias in the specification of the model and the empirical estimation. The study found the existence of a stable long run relationship between broad money and the monetary base, confirming that the necessary condition for monetary control within a multiplier frame work is satisfied for Nigeria. Also, the spate of quantitative easing by the Central Bank of Nigeria to ameliorate adverse liquidity conditions and the lingering effects of the global financial crises occasioned a structural break in monetary policy, determined endogenously to have occurred in November 2009

A dynamic fragmentation of the misery index in Nigeria

This study adopts a dynamic approach to compute the level of economic distress in Nigeria. Quarterly series from 2002Q1 to 2016Q4 were utilized in computing the index. Leveraging on the expectations-augmented Phillips curve and Okun’s law, the results obtained indicate a minimum and maximum misery values of 16.92% (2007Q3) and 53.42% (2016Q4), respectively, with an average value of 31.49% over the study horizon. The index recorded a skewness of 0.31% indicating moderate level of asymmetry and a kurtosis of 3.26% indicating that the index is leptokurtically distributed with an approximate standard deviation of 8.00%. This implies the presence of appreciable level of volatility. A plot of crude oil price with the misery index overall shows that as price increased, the misery index decreased but in some instances, increase in crude oil price was consistent with increased misery. The persistent insecurity and militancy activities may have accounted for the observed puzzling co-movement. The computation also indicates that decrease in expected variation in inflation, results in increased unemployment by 61.0 per cent decrease in the variation in expected inflation associated with a unit change in the variation between the potential and actual rates of unemployment over the study horizon, which confirms theoretical expectations. On the whole, the results suggest that economic well-being in Nigeria has worsened over the years, especially between 2013Q3 and 2016Q4. The study, therefore, recommends sustained policies aimed at diversifying the revenue base of the economy away from heavy dependence on crude oil. This has the capacity to obviate the hardship occasioned by the fall in oil price and reduction in oil production