This study explores cross-regional interconnectedness, potential spillover effects, and the channels through which systemic risk is transmitted across financial institutions and macroeconomic factors in BRICS and Eurozone economies from 2005 to 2021. The aim is to deepen the understanding of systemic risk at a cross-regional level, highlight the pivotal role of institutions in shaping the broader systemic risk landscape, and uncover potential discrepancies arising from the differing economic structures, financial institutions, and macroeconomic policy frameworks of the BRICS and Eurozone regions. Using panel regression analysis and the Delta-CoVaR approach, this study models monthly data on selected systemic risk determinants for BRICS and Eurozone economies from 2005 to 2021. Our findings reveal that larger institutions in the Eurozone heighten the interconnectedness of systemic risk, triggering chain reactions that attract close regulatory scrutiny. Furthermore, Eurozone nations exhibit heightened systemic risk, exacerbated by the rapid transmission of financial turmoil. In the BRICS economies, accelerated growth rates attract substantial foreign investment, further intensifying systemic risk in their commodity-dependent markets. Policy recommendations from this study suggest that for a stronger risk management strategy, decisionmakers should consider the pivotal roles played by financial institutions and macroeconomic variables in spreading systemic risk within the BRICS and Eurozone regions.
This study explores the role of employment traits in explaining financial literacy using data from the Wave 5 of the South African National Income Dynamics Study for adults. The results show that being in employment relatively enhances financial literacy, including the components of financial literacy: interest rates, inflation, compounding and diversification. Being self-employed particularly shows up to exert positive and measurable influences on financial literacy, except for the top literacy where respondents give correct answers to all five financial literacy questions. The key lesson from the study is that self-employment, by inference entrepreneurship, is an important conduit of financial knowledge.
This study examines how prolonged participation in savings groups (SGs) impacts self-employment among people with disabilities. SGs, also known as village savings and loan associations (VSLA), provide their members with financial capital, social capital and more, which can potentially increase their chances of self-employment. This study uses current survey data on SGs in the iSAVE programme in Uganda, comprising responses from 14,260 individuals, of whom 72 percent report having some form of disability. Estimates from a variety of logistic regression models show that people with disabilities are 37.5 percentage points less likely to be self-employed. However, the interaction effect of prolonged participation in SGs increases the expected probability of self-employment among people with disabilities by 0.343, which corresponds to a 34.3 percentage point higher chances of starting a business or an income generation enterprise. While prolonged participation in SGs promotes selfemployment, we find that entrepreneurial role models within SGs accounts for a 19.3 percentage points increase in willingness for self-employment among people with disabilities. This highlights the critical importance and impact of role models in disabled communities, such as the iSAVE programme, in encouraging self-employment.
With insufficient documentation of infrastructure projects and limited empirical evidence, African governments have no scientific guidance on the choice between private-public partnerships (PPPs) and traditional (TP) infrastructure procurement. Under these circumstances, it is unclear whether their choices maximize value for money (VfM) on infrastructure projects. This paper sought to develop a framework for assessing VfM, establish the factors that drive VfM, and ascertain what stakeholders consider to constitute VfM, for TP and PPP projects. By deploying structural equation modelling technology, we find that technical (e.g., efficient project scoping) and financial (e.g., efficient risk allocation) factors are important for VfM on PPP projects, while political (e.g. efficient procurement process) and social (e.g. environmental impact considerations) factors play a more crucial role for TP projects. Thus, while stakeholders make judgments about VfM for PPP projects from a technical and financial standpoint, for government projects they use a political and social lens to make similar judgment. Interestingly, we also find that consistency of a project with national and local development goals is the single most important VfM indicator for both PPP and TP infrastructure projects
Across the globe, stock markets provide mechanisms for allocating funds from surplus units to deficit units, thereby offering numerous benefits to economic agents. Despite these benefits, the current low level of African stock market development inhibits the continent's growth. It hampers the rapid realisation of its potential, thereby compelling investigation into the factors that mitigate or motivate development in the stock market. Consequently, this paper evaluates the impact of national energy generation capacity on stock market development in Africa. The findings suggest that a reduction in the incidence of poor energy generation has a positive effect on stock market development. The empirical analyses also reveal that this relationship is more pronounced for Sub-Saharan African countries and African countries with low GDP per capita. In effect, by increasing power generation, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa can stimulate interest and participation in their stock markets. Our study contributes to the call for additional policy interventions to address the deplorable state of power generation and distribution across most of Africa.
