Following the rising wave of terrorism in Africa, particularly in the last decade, this study investigated the effect of terrorism on economic complexity in the region as well as the moderating role of military expenditure in the terrorism-economic complexity relationship. A panel of 34 African economies was used over the period 2010-2021. The study also used the dynamic system generalized method of moments framework. We find that the unconditional effect of terrorism on economic complexity in Africa is predominantly negative and significant, and that military expenditure in the region has been ineffective in moderating this adverse effect. This finding remained robust regardless of whether terrorism is measured by the number of terrorism incidents, fatalities, injuries, or hostages. However, our results showed that industrialization, urbanization, and governance institutional quality are potent channels for promoting economic complexity in Africa. Among others, the study emphasized the need for policymakers and leaders in Africa to collaborate at the level of the African Union to address the detrimental effects of terrorism on the continent.

Following the need for more recent rigorous empirical evidence on the role of institutions at sectoral level as well as the conflicting empirical evidences on the institutions-growth relationship in Africa, this study investigated the sectoral impacts of institutional quality in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The study also revisited the role of institutions in the aggregate economy. The system GMM estimation procedure and a panel of 42 SSA countries were used over the period 2010 to 2018. The results indicate that contrary to the widely held view that institutions foster growth and development, the role of institutional quality in sectoral and aggregate economic performance in SSA generally remained muted. However, the results indicate that initial level of real GDP and labor are robust drivers of growth, particularly in the aggregate economy. The study therefore concludes that the sub-region requires institutional reform, enhanced human capital development and capital accumulation to drive sectoral and aggregate economic performance in SSA. JEL Classification : N20; F43; C23; N17

Motivated by the persistent fall in oil prices due to incessant uncertainty-inducing events in recent years, this study empirically examined if economic growth in Africa's top five oil exporters (Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya, and Nigeria) is responding asymmetrically to changes in global economic uncertainty as well as uncertainties from U.S., Europe and China using nonlinear ARDL framework from 1997Q1 to 2021Q4. We find that rising global uncertainty hampers economic growth in these economies, while declining global uncertainty significantly enhances growth in Nigeria, Angola and Libya in the short run, but becomes growth-retarding in the long run. Thus, economic growth responds asymmetrically to global uncertainty, especially in the short run. The findings are robust to U.S., Europe, and China uncertainties, except that economic growth in Libya and Algeria remained unresponsive to U.S. and China uncertainties respectively. We concluded that Africa's oil exporters should embrace policies that can strengthen their resilience to global economic uncertainty as well as uncertainties from U.S., Europe, and China.

In recent years, the global economy has witnessed several uncertainty-inducing events. However, empirical evidence in Africa on the effects of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on economic activities remains scanty. Besides, the moderating effect of governance institutions on the uncertainty-economic performance relationship in Africa and the likelihood of regional differences in the response of economic activities to EPU on the continent are yet to be investigated. To address these gaps, we applied system GMM and quantile regressions on a panel of forty-seven African countries from 2010 to 2019. We find that while global EPU and EPUs from China, USA and Canada exert considerable influence on economic performance in Africa, the effects of domestic EPU and EPUs from Europe, UK, Japan, and Russia were negligible, suggesting that African economies are resilient to these sources of uncertainty shocks. We also find that governance institutions in Africa are not significantly moderating the uncertainty-economic performance relationship. However, our results highlighted regional differences in the response of economic activities to uncertainty, such that when compared to East and West Africa, economic performance in Central, North and Southern Africa is generally more resilient to global EPU and EPUs from China, USA, Europe and UK. We highlighted the policy implications of these findings.

Over the years, economic policy in Nigeria has been a subject of concern for policymakers. The effectiveness of this policy in providing basic necessities for Nigerians has also been in question. There have been several controversies in terms of its implementation and sustainability over the years. In this paper, we investigate the impact of economic policies on providing sustainable water and sanitation facilities in Nigeria. In our analysis, the binary logistic model is adopted to understand how effective these policies are in providing these facilities. The results show that expenditure on social and community service leads to an increase in the use of unsafe sanitation facilities in the country. Furthermore, our study also shows that expenditure in the health services sector helps in reducing the use of such unsafe facilities. From the results, we recommend that policies aimed toward providing sustainable water and sanitation facilities need proper checks, improvement, and effective implementation so as to achieve viable results. These can be done by implementing supervised community projects on sanitation facilities and also by educating local communities through organized symposiums and workshops in rural and certain urban areas in the country.

PurposeThe market-based monetary policy framework has been favoured by Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) economies. Hence, this study aims to investigate the effect of monetary policy channels on the sectoral value added and sustainable economic growth in ECOWAS. Data from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund over 2013–2019 were sourced for thirteen member countries. ECOWAS is found to have very high inflation level, interest and exchange rates.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted the Driscoll–Kraay fixed-effects ordinary least squares regression (OLS) estimator.FindingsThe findings revealed that while the effect of monetary policy channels on the agricultural sector value added is largely heterogenous and significantly in-elastic, the one on the industrial and services sectors are overwhelmingly homogeneous and negative, but insignificant for the services sector. Moreover, the effect of monetary policy channels on sustainable economic growth is also homogeneously asymmetric, with imminent stagflation, while the interactive effects of monetary policy channels are heterogeneous on sustainable economic growth and economic sectors. Therefore, an inflation targeting monetary policy stance is generally recommended with prioritised exchange rate stabilisation amid sufficient fiscal space.Originality/valueThis is amongst the first studies to investigate monetary policy channels, sectoral outputs and sustainable growth in the ECOWAS region with a rigorous analysis and found implications for policy.

Based on the fact that Africa has not fared well in attracting foreign direct investments in the last decade compared to other regions of the world, especially during periods of high uncertainty occasioned by one crisis or the other, this study investigated: the impacts of global uncertainty and economic governance institutions on FDI inflow to Africa; the moderating effect of economic governance institutions on global uncertainty-FDI relationship in Africa; and other significant drivers of FDI inflow to Africa. The study used the system GMM modeling framework and a panel of 46 African economies over the period 2010–2019. The results indicate that global uncertainty has a significant dampening effect on FDI inflow to Africa, and economic governance institutions on the continent amplify this effect rather than mitigate it. The results further indicate that natural resource endowment, market size, and initial FDI inflows are robust drivers of FDI inflows to Africa, while the roles of financial development and trade openness remained muted. Overall, the study concludes that policymakers in Africa should take urgent steps to strengthen the quality of economic governance institutions as a means of mitigating the excruciating effect of global uncertainty on FDI inflows to Africa.

There are increasing debates on the relationship between economic complexity and environmental degradation. This study deepens our understanding of this nexus in 11 emerging economies given the moderating role of energy consumption while controlling for economic development, trade openness and population growth. The findings from the quantile regression technique reveal that emerging economies are characteristic of low energy consumption, leading to insignificant contributions of economic complexity to environmental degradation across the spectrum as they also have very low-trade openness. Further results show the invalidity of the EKC between energy use (such as fossil fuels) and environmental degradation in emerging economies. Moreover, the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) between economic development and environmental degradation is valid especially for those countries in the low and median quantiles (Egypt, Indonesia, and Vietnam). Also, the EKC hypothesis between population and environmental degradation is valid only for countries in the high and highest quantiles (Korea Republic, Turkey, Mexico and Iran). Finally, the results revealed that trade openness strictly reduces environmental degradation across the spectrum. Policy implications, limitations of the study and direction for future research are discussed.

Peace has been deemed paramount to socioeconomic progress and economic development across nations. It is for this reason nations strive to improve the peaceful coexistence of citizens. This study investigates the effect of democracy, governance and militarisation on peace in 43 African countries for the year 2018 in a cross sectional framework. The ordinary least square (OLS), the tobit regression and the quantile regression (QR) where employed as estimation strategies. The empirical result firstly reveal that democracy increases peace in Africa, particularly in countries where the initial level of peace is at its highest level. Secondly, militarisation of Africa reduces peace in the region only in countries where the initial level of peace is at its highest level. Thirdly, the influence of governance on peace in Africa depends majorly on the measure of governance utilized. The control of corruption, government effectiveness and regulatory quality increases peace where the initial level of peace is at its lowest level. Political stability increases peace across the entire quantiles utilized while rule of law increases peace in countries where the initial level of peace is low. In conclusion, governance in general increases peace in the countries where initial level of peace is very low. Policy recommendations based on these findings are discussed.

This study examined the effects of both aggregate and disaggregated infrastructural development indices (such as transport, electricity, ICT, and water and sanitation infrastructure indices) on economic performance in Africa. The study used the dynamic system GMM framework and found that both aggregate and disaggregated infrastructural development indices impact positively on GDP per capita growth in Africa. These impacts were shown to be significant in all cases, except for the transportation infrastructure index. The results overwhelmingly confirmed the prevalence of the symmetric hypothesis in the infrastructure–growth relationship in Africa. The study also found some evidence in support of the significant roles of capital, labour and initial GDP per capita in Africa's economic performance, while the role of trade remained negative and muted. The study concluded that through effective public administration, African leaders and policymakers can promote economic performance on the continent by evolving policies that favour increased infrastructural development, human capital development and capital accumulation.

Poverty and income inequality are the twin greatest menaces in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with significant prevalence. This study decomposed their significance and probabilities in determining the quality of life (QOL) of individuals and households in SSA while controlling for household demographics. The household-level poverty (HLP) index and the indexes for QOL indicators were constructed from the national demographic and health surveys (DHS) for SSA countries. Data on consumption poverty thresholds and income inequality are from the global consumption and income project (GCIP) over 1985-2015. Findings reveal that, while the HLP index elicits more rural poverty across regions, consumption poverty thresholds are more urbanized and persistent across regions, except for Central Africa. The results for income inequality were found to be Gini -0.4396 and Atkinson index -0.4437, and more urbanized across regions. Furthermore, we found that SSA has made giant strides towards achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) 6 and 3 but no information on the quality of healthcare. However, abysmal likelihoods exist for SDGs 4, 7 and 8 in SSA. Similarly, abysmal probabilities were also found for households' access to adequate housing, a good environment and insurance coverage. Indeed, SDG-4 is more significant for achieving SDG-8. HLP stand as a significant bottleneck to achieving SDG-7 and adequate housing, while income inequality mars SDG-3 targets and sustainable environmental conditions in SSA. Policy options are discussed.

Unlike the extant literature, this study revisited the tourism-growth relationship in Africa and accounted for the moderating effects of climatic factors, infrastructural development and political risk on this relationship. The study used the system GMM technique, the panel Granger causality framework, and annual panel data of 41 African countries from 2009 to 2018. Contrary to the tourism-led growth hypothesis, we find that the role of tourism as a driver of economic growth in Africa is predominantly negligible, which in turn suggests that Africa is yet to exploit its tourism potentials to drive growth during the post-Global Financial Crisis period. The study concludes that there is need for African leaders to coordinate policy efforts towards harnessing the tourism potentials on the continent in order to diversify their economies, counter instability in global commodity markets, drive sustainable growth, and fight the twin evils of poverty and unemployment.

The debates on how inequality, economic development and urbanization affects the environment has been intense, but lacks the African perspective. Hence, this study examined these relationships, as well as other pathways to environmental degradation in Africa and her regions, such as FDI. Also, it explored the relationships amongst urbanization, economic development and inequality. Using Pedroni’s cointegration and Quantile regression over 1996–2014 period, findings show cointegration and regional heterogeneities on the environmental, urbanization, economic development and inequality transmissions. Particularly, in Africa, inequality engenders more environmental degradation across all quantiles. Moreover, Africa and her regions are characteristic of a homogenous N-shaped relationship between economic development and environmental degradation. Similarly, a homogenous pollution haven hypothesis is true for Africa. However, EKC between economic development and inequality holds for countries with low and median initial levels of income inequality, but do not hold for countries with the highest initial levels. Furthermore, the EKC hypothesis holds between urbanization and inequality and, between urbanization and environmental degradation. Thus, urbanization complemented with employment creation strictly reduces inequality. Consequently, amongst policy targets are to bridge the income gap, reduce environmental degradation via strict environmental laws on imports, and building more sustainable urbanization and economic development processes for African countries.