This study investigates the impact of monetary policy shocks in two regimes of the business cycles (contractionary and expansion regimes) in 4 countries in the West African monetary zone (WAMZ). It employs the Markov switching model, using quarterly data for the period 1980Q1 to 2020Q4. Our findings show that the countries have common business cycles. In addition, the study offered enough evidence that the significant effects of the monetary instruments are significantly more potent in contractionary than expansionary regimes. Furthermore, on the aggregate, the zone appears to have an average business cycle ranging from 9.8 to 32.3 quarters, varying from country to country and comparatively shorter than the industrial countries. Hence, the designing of policies by the monetary authorities in this region should be tailored to shorten the duration of the contractionary period and must be meticulously formulated to avert the negative consequences of strict contractionary policy and ditto to expansionary policy.

Abstract Research Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has the capacity of severely disrupting economic activities and triggering economic crisis, especially in Africa’s Oil Exporting Countries (AOECs). The African economy is likely to be the worst hit, especially the Africa Oil Exporting Countries (AOECs), as they have been majorly low income countries and considering the fall in oil prices, as oil revenue forms a major source of their revenue and government expenditure. Purpose: This study explored the stakeholders’ opinions on reshaping and restructuring the economies of six African Oil Exporting Countries, with the aim of ascertaining the views of academics within the six AOECs, as regards the economic revival post COVID-19. Research methodology: The study utilized the Participatory Development Strategy Approach (PDSA), employing the Cronbach Alpha Reliability test, Estimated Response Rate (ERR) and Explanatory Factor Analysis (EFA) to extract opinions from 1,260 stakeholders within the six AOECs. Results: The results show that the stakeholders are of the opinion that the solutions to the rebuilding of AOECs are multi-faceted, suggesting a mixture of both government and private institutions in varying degrees. Some of the respondents favoured going back to agriculture and agribusiness to revamp their economies. Novelty: The study utilized an uncommon methodology; the Participatory Development Strategy Approach (PDSA) to achieve its objective. The PDSA is meant to allow the affected stakeholders’ participation in the policy making process. The respondents were purely academics, as it is believed that academics are the sources of hope of solving myriads of human challenges such as hunger and economic crisis.

The study analyzed the impact of monetary policy shocks on economic growth in 12 countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), using quarterly data from 1980(1) to 2017(4). We employed a Panel Structural Vector Autoregressive (Panel SVAR) for the modeling of monetary policy transmission shock in the segregated sub-regions of WAMZ and WAEMU. The key results suggest that fluctuations of the monetary policy do not have significant effects on the economic growth but significantly impact the general price level. Moreover, the study finds that the exchange rate is persistently a vital mechanism that significantly influences the variables of the real economy. Our estimates further suggest that there is idiosyncratic evidence found in the results, which is the anomaly of the Price puzzle.

The study examined the impacts of savings and investment on economic growth in Nigeria, using some statistical tests such as ARDL estimating technique, Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Bound co-integration test on Nigerian data from 1980 to 2019. The estimation results show that savings and investment have negative and statistically significant effect both in the short-run and long-run on economic growth in Nigeria. These suggest that Nigeria has grossly low saving culture and may be experiencing deficient demand problems. This result affirms the classical view that both savings and investment equilibrates. Infrastructural facilities (proxy by electricity) have negative and significant effects on economic growth in Nigeria. The implications are that private provision of electricity is usually not cost effective and seems to have a negative implication on the business’ profitability. It is therefore recommended that the focus of development policies in Nigeria should be on the monetary and fiscal policies, as to encourage high investment and saving culture.

The study investigates the influence of crude oil price shocks on the macroeconomic performance of Africa's oil-producing countries. Eight major net oil producers, namely, Algeria, Nigeria, Egypt, Angola, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Congo Republic are included in the study. Sudan is excluded due to data constraints. The study covers the period between 1980 and 2016, which represents the periods with the most boom and bust movements in crude oil prices. The Hamilton Index (1996) which uses the net oil price increase is applied. The study compares the price of oil in each quarter with the maximum value observed during the preceding four quarters. This is used to derive sharp increases and declines in oil prices to capture oil price shocks. A Panel Structural Vector Auto-Regression model is adopted for analysis. The results show that the reaction of output to sharp increases and declines in oil prices differ. It is also observed that structural inflation accompanies sharp declines in oil prices more than monetary inflation, since both outputs and investment decline significantly.

The study examined the nature and structure of alternative supply of electricity in Nigeria. It has been observed that all the efforts of the Nigerian government to improve electricity supply and promote access to electricity have been proving abortive and households at various levels are confronted with the challenge of searching for alternative supply of electricity. Also, state government and some private organizations are interested in solving this challenge, but they lack appropriate empirically grounded information on the choice of alternative source of electricity. The study, which is a pure exploratory one, used primary data through well-structured questionnaire from a sample of 4,758 households across 16 local governments in Ekiti State of Nigeria. Applying descriptive statistics, the strengths and weaknesses of various alternative sources of electricity supply among households were analyzed. The results indicate that rechargeable appliances, electricity generating set, inverter and solar/inverter are the four major types of alternative sources of electricity supply common among the households. It was also revealed that out of all the positive ratings such as regularity in supply, ease of maintenance and capacity, solar powered source of alternative electricity supply appears to be the best. The only rating that is unfavorable to the solar type of alternative sources of electricity supply is in the area of affordability. Government and interested private organizations should embark on establishment of solar powered stations for some communities or distribution of solar panels and inverters at subsidized rate to households to improve their socio-economic well-being.

The study investigates the impacts of human capital and capital goods import on the economic growth of the SSA. 30 countries are used in the Panel- ARDL analysis where economic growth is the dependent variable and capital goods import, human capital, primary export, investment exchange rate, among others are used as the independent variables. The result from the panel analysis indicates that capital goods import significantly and positively influence economic growth but human capital fails to have significant positive impact on economic growth of the SSA. Earlier, the trend analysis and the correlation results have shown that there is a weak association between capital goods import and human capital in the SSA. The results offer an expository analysis that reveals that the quality of the human capital is very germane to the effective utilization of capital goods import for purpose of growth in a primary goods export dominated region like the SSA.

Research background: The need for diversification of the Nigerian economy has been emphasized and the manufacturing sector has a major role in this. Being an oil producing country, monetary policy is an important macroeconomic policy that has always been used to manage the influence of oil price shock on the manufacturing sector.

External credits have been received from various sources including bilateral and multilateral arrangements but the country’s debt is a source of worry since the projects for which these loans were contracted cannot finance the credit facilities. This paper focused on the impact of external debt on economic growth in Nigeria within the period of 1980 to 2016. Thus, secondary data on gross domestic product and external debt were sourced from CBN statistical bulletin and debt management office fact book. The econometric method of Generalized Method of Moments(GMM) test was used. Priori the GMM test is the Kwiatkowski, Phillips, Schemidt and Shin, (KPSS) unit root test to ascertain the stationarity of the variables. Based on the empirical results; the KPSS stationarity test for each of the series showed that all the variables were stationary at order one as their respective LM statistics was less than the critical value at 5%. The GMM test shows that external debt and economic growth has positive and significant relationship with R2 of 54 percent. Therefore, to achieve long-term solution to the problem of external debts burden, government should stimulate domestic production to liberate the Nigerian economy from the shackles of wants and excessive dependence on external economics, which build up debt. Also, government should avoid unnecessary and unproductive borrowing that will serve as a leakage to the economy. This to a large extent will enhance the growth of the Nigerian economy.

The purpose of the paper is to use econometric methods to ascertain the main determinants of rising military expenditure in BRICS countries for the period of 1970 to 2017.The empirical result of the determinant for military expenditure of BRICS countries from 1970 to 2017 employed the panel data analysis approach. Based on the detailed theoretical and empirical literature on determinant for military expenditure, the neoclassical model was considered the best to analyzed determinant of BRICS countries military expenditure. BRICS countries political economy and security factors were incorporate for model specification. The determinant for military expenditure for BRICS include income, population, government expenditure, Security web (average military expenditure of neighboring countries within BRICS countries), internal threats and external threats. The economic, political and security factors are included. The empirical result suggest that BRICS countries military expenditure is mainly determined by its income, population, exchange rate, internal threats, inflation and political regime (proxy by democracy index). In conclusion, the result reveal that BRICS policy makers if they are interested in reversing their high unemployment and poverty rate should focus their attention on these encouraging the local production of their arms/ammunition (military industries) which will create job opportunities for their teeming youthful population. This result is in line with the findings of (Tambudzai, 2011), (Brauer, 2002) and Hartley and (Sandler & Hartley, 1995).

The study investigated the effects of monetary policy dynamics on the economic growth of the SSA using data from thirty seven Sub Saharan African Countries. Dynamic panel data technique is used to estimate the model which described the relationship between SSA economic growth and monetary policy variables. However, macroeconomic variables such as exchange rate, inflation rate among others are included in the estimated dynamic panel model. The results show that the monetary policy rates failed to lead to sustainable growth in the SSA because of the limited effects it has in boosting domestic output. This reason is evident in the fact that the expected effect of expansionary monetary policy is limited due to weak financial deepening that is rampant in many Sub Saharan African Countries. Monetary policy approach that will not only be expansionary but exert required financial deepening that will have significant effect on the real domestic activities in the SSA should be encouraged. Research paper Keywords: Monetary policy dynamics, Dynamic panel data, Sub Sahara Africa Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Omolade, A., & Mukolu, O. M. (2018). monetary policy dynamics and the economic growth of the sub sahara africa (SSA), Journal of Entrepreneurship, Business and Economics , 6 (1), 36–58.

The paper conducts a short-run analysis of the implications of oil price movements and exchange rate relationship for the Nigerian manufacturing sector growth between January 2008 and September 2017. Monthly data are extracted on variables such as oil price, exchange rate, inflation rate, interest (lending) rate, money supply and the manufacturing sector growth rate. Oil price movements are viewed in terms of both volatility and change. While EGARCH is used to estimate oil price volatility, oil price change is measured using Hamilton index for both oil price sharp drop and jump. The SVAR results indicate that exchange rate and inflation rate are more responsive to sharp drop in oil price. The two variables also have the highest impact on the manufacturing sector growth. Findings further indicate that Nigerian manufacturing sector is more affected at the cost side than the output side. This underscores the importance of tackling the inflation pressure in Nigeria from the structural perspective as against the monetary perspective.

This study examined the determinants of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) volatility in Nigeria. The study used annual data covering the periods 1986 to 2016 and the EGARCH approach was employed. The study observed that trade openness and world GDP were the significant determinants of FDI volatility, while domestic interest rate and stock market capitalization were significant determinants of FPI volatility in Nigeria. Other variables were insignificant in influencing volatility in FDI and FPI. Consequently, the study recommends the need for the prudent management of these determinants (with particular reference to indigenous variables) to ensure reduced volatilities in these capital flows which are essential for the growth of the domestic economy, particularly at this time when the Nigerian economy is in great need of foreign investment owing to the continuous variation in international crude oil price.

The study examines the role of exchange rate regimes in determining the nature of relationship be-tween monetary policy transmission mechanisms and manufacturing output growth in oil producing economies in Africa. Libya and Nigeria were used in the study because of the different exchange rate regimes practice in both oil exporting countries. Nigeria as a net oil exporter practices flexible ex-change rate while Libya as a net oil exporter practices fixed exchange rate system. The study employs structural variance decomposition approach (SVAR). It was found out from the study that exchange rate regime has some influences on the monetary policy transmission mechanism and its effectiveness on the manufacturing output growth in the two oil exporting countries. Oil price shocks affect the monetary policy instrument of both countries greatly. While monetary policy instrument appears to be ineffective in promoting output growth of the manufacturing sector in Libya that practices fixed ex-change rate, the reverse is the case in Nigeria. Flexible exchange rate appears to create enabling envi-ronment for monetary policy instrument to influence manufacturing output growth positively in the face of oil price shock. Research paper Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Omolade, A. Ngalawa, H. (2017). “Monetary policy transmission mechanism and growth of the manufacturing sectors in Libya and Nigeria: Does exchange rate regime matter?”, Journal of Entrepreneurship, Business and Economics, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 67–107.

The principal objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between monetary policy and growth of the manufacturing sector in Algeria. Using a structural vector autoregressive model and quarterly frequency data for the period 1980Q1 to 2010Q4, the study finds no evidence that money supply responds to fluctuations in manufacturing sector growth or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. Interest rates, however, are seen to explain nearly a third of the variations in manufacturing output growth, suggesting that the manufacturing sector is sensitive to interest rates. The study also reveals that money supply variations are largely explained by changes in interest rates. A peek at the monetary transmission process reveals that Algeria employs monetary aggregates as the primary operating tool of monetary policy. The monetary authorities adjust total money supply in response to any movements in the rate of interest, probably to keep the rate of interest within a certain target given other developments in the fundamentals. The interest rates, in turn, play an important role in determining variations in manufacturing sector growth. In addition, the interest rates significantly affect exchange rates, which are observed to respond to changes in overall GDP growth. It is the overall GDP growth that has the largest influence on manufacturing sector growth, probably due to strong forward and backward linkages between the manufacturing sector and other sectors of the economy. Keywords: Monetary policy, transmission mechanism, manufacturing output, oil price shocks. JEL Classifications: E23, E31, E52

The test for correlation matrix shows a positive correlation between budget deficit and private savings. Also, the regression result shows a positive relationship between budget deficit and private savings in the economy of Nigeria which follows the Ricardian equivalences that increase in budget deficit leads to a rise in private savings which is against the Keynesian and Neo-classical view which supports the point that increase in budget deficit will increase aggregate demand and offset private savings. The study recommends that the mindset of people should be change so that the citizens will see budget deficit as injection to the economy and not as a future burden to them through fiscal discipline

The study investigated the impact of financial market development on the Nigerian economy. Based on growth theory and other empirical findings a model expressing gross domestic product GDP as a function of exchange rate (Exr), money supply growth rate (Msgr), market capitalisation (Mcap) and stock traded turnover ratio (Stck). Ordinary least square estimating technique is adopted particularly multiple regression analysis. The results show that market capitalisation and exchange rate have positive and significant impact on the growth of Nigerian economy. While inflation rate, money supply and stock traded turnover which is arguably seen to be a better indicator of stock market performance than market capitalisation. It appears that the gains from stock market have not been felt significantly in the Nigerian economy due to the non-significance of the stock traded turnover. It is recommended that effort is more geared toward development of the financial market by increasing more patronage so as to improve the impact on the Nigerian economy.