Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate how China’s economic policy uncertainty (CEPU) affects trade dynamics between China and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This is particularly critical given that China has surpassed the USA to become Africa’s leading trade partner. Design/methodology/approach Using a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag framework, the study investigates the asymmetric effects of CEPU on trade with six selected SSA economies – South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Angola, Tanzania and Ghana – over the period 2000Q1 to 2022Q4. The authors also analyse the asymmetric impact on imports from China into these economies. Findings The study finds that in the long run, both rising and declining CEPU levels promote Chinese trade with Kenya, Ghana and Tanzania, though only Ghana sees significant import gains. In the short run, rising and declining CEPU similarly tend to boost trade flows from China. However, only rising CEPU exerts a significant positive effect on imports in Ghana, while the impact of declining CEPU on imports remains largely negligible. Policy implications arising from these findings were discussed. Originality/value The study, unlike previous studies, examines how CEPU is influencing trade flows between China and her six largest trading partners in SSA. It also investigates whether these trade flows respond asymmetrically to increases and decreases in CEPU.

This study investigates whether climate finance reduces energy poverty in the Global South and, more importantly, whether its effectiveness depends on institutional quality. By using a balanced panel of 45 countries across Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, the study applies Dynamic Common Correlated Effects (DCCE) estimators, instrumental-variable techniques, and panel threshold regression models that account for cross-sectional dependence, heterogeneity, and endogeneity. The baseline results show that climate finance does not exert a statistically significant average effect on energy poverty across the full sample, while institutional quality consistently reduces energy deprivation. However, threshold analysis reveals a significant nonlinear relationship. An institutional quality threshold of 0.370 is identified, above which climate finance produces statistically significant reductions in energy poverty, whereas no meaningful effect is observed below the threshold. The results indicate that climate finance is not universally effective; rather, its impact depends on the institutional environment within recipient countries. Robustness checks using alternative measures of energy poverty, instrumental-variable estimation, and alternative estimators confirm the stability of the findings. The study concludes that strengthening institutional quality is a prerequisite for translating climate-finance inflows into improved energy access outcomes. Policies aimed at achieving a just energy transition should therefore combine increased climate-finance mobilization with reforms that enhance governance capacity, accountability, and implementation effectiveness.

The importance of trade in stimulating overall production of goods and services cannot be overemphasized. The tourism sector and remittance inflow have been found to be relevant factors in explaining the dynamics of trade in Nigeria. To this end, the focus of this research is to investigate the effects of tourism and remittance inflow on trade in Nigeria. The present research is different from the existing studies in two ways. First, this research employed ordinary least squares technique for the period 1981--2021. Second, our research adopted personal remittances and percentage of GDP as a measure of remittance inflow and trade respectively. The research revealed that tourism and remittance inflow are positive and have a significant impact on trade in Nigeria. This study suggests that tourism and remittance inflow offer important channels in encouraging trade. Hence, the policy recommendations from this research are based on our findings.

This study investigated the effects of resource rent and infrastructural development on entrepreneurship in Africa and how governance institutions on the continent are moderating these relationships. The dynamic system GMM estimation approach and a panel of 34 African economies were used over the period 2010–2021. The analysis uncovered several important findings. First, we found that while infrastructural development significantly promotes entrepreneurship in Africa, resource rent significantly hampers it. Second, we found that instead of reducing the adverse effect of resource rent on entrepreneurship in Africa, governance institutions on the continent are intensifying it. However, we did not find evidence that governance institutions in the region are adversely influencing the infrastructure-entrepreneurship relationship. Third, we also established that foreign direct investment inflow is an important driver of entrepreneurship in Africa, while economic policy uncertainty is a deterring factor. Consequently, the study underscored the importance of prioritizing institutional reforms to ensure reduced uncertainty in the policy environment, enhanced transparent resource management, increased infrastructural investment, and sustainable entrepreneurship development in Africa.

ABSTRACTIn line with earlier research on economic development, which viewed development as a process of structural modification of the productive structure, this study concentrates on economic complexity and its role in the developmental process. We studied how economic complexity and economic governance institutions affect sectoral performance in Africa, and how economic governance institutions are moderating the economic complexity‐sectoral performance nexus in the region. The study covered a sample of 30 African countries over the period 2010–2021, and used both the dynamic system GMM and the Driscoll and Kraay (1998) standard errors fixed effect estimation techniques. We find that economic complexity and economic governance institutions individually have negative unconditional effects on the agricultural, manufacturing, and services sectors in Africa. We also find that economic governance institutions on the continent failed to moderate the adverse effect of economic complexity on sectoral performance. These findings indicate that the low level of economic complexity in African economies and the weak governance institutions that have plagued the continent have both contributed to its poor sectoral performance. In line with these findings, we provided policy recommendations, which emphasized the need for economic diversification and governance institutional reform in Africa.

Climate change presents one of the most pressing challenges of the present time, with far-reaching implications for global economies and human socioeconomic well-being. Africa, in particular, remains susceptible to its effects. This study investigates the effects of climate change and agricultural productivity on selected poverty outcomes and the moderating role of governance institutions in these relationships in Africa, using panel data of 36 African countries spanning a period of 20 years (2001 to 2020) and the system generalised method of moments (GMM) estimation framework. The findings indicate that climate change and agricultural productivity have a significant impact on poverty outcomes across Africa. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the continent’s institutions for governance are not significantly improving the impact of climate change and agricultural productivity on poverty in Africa. This can be attributed to the prevalence of weak institutions in Africa, and their inability to effectively exploit the potential of the continent’s institutions to their fullest. Based on the findings, the study makes some valid policy recommendations for African policy makers and heads of government.

This study empirically investigates the relationship between external debt and economic growth in Nigeria and selected Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries using annual time series data spanning from 1970 to 2015. The study employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bound testing technique to determine the presence of a long-run relationship between external debt and economic growth, and to ascertain the short-run dynamics. The empirical findings reveal a negative and significant relationship between external debt and economic growth both in the short and long run. Furthermore, the study identifies debt servicing as a significant constraint on economic growth in the SSA region. Based on these findings, the study recommends prudent debt management strategies, effective utilization of borrowed funds, and policies aimed at promoting sustainable economic growth while minimizing the adverse effects of external debt accumulation.

It is evident that the role of trade and governance institutions in enhancing economic complexity in Africa is still under serious debate regarding whether it is detrimental or beneficial to economic growth. The purpose of this study is to investigate how trade and governance institutions influence economic complexity in Africa using a system Generalized Method of Moments (system GMM) and 31 African economies for the period 2011-2020. Beyond these key variables of interest, our study includes some macroeconomic variables in the model, such as international tourism arrivals, infrastructural development, and human capital development, to ensure robustness of the results. The results of the system GMM reveal that trade promotes economic complexity in Africa, while institutional quality indicators such as control of corruption, rule of law, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, political stability, and absence of violence/terrorism, including voice and accountability, are predominantly negative in improving economic complexity on the continent. Further results of system GMM also reveal that infrastructural and human capital developments are relevant drivers of economic complexity, while international tourism arrivals played a detrimental role. This study proposes that African leaders and policymakers across the continent should come together to advance free trade and advocate reform for strong institutions through the instrumentality of the African Union.

This study analyzed the effect of economic complexity on health outcomes in Africa, using the dynamic system GMM estimation framework and a panel of 36 African economies from 2010 to 2022. To avoid misleading estimates, the study accounted for year-fixed effects, serial correlation, heteroskedasticity, and cross-sectional dependence. To provide adequate robustness checks, the study utilized three key measures of health outcome, namely maternal mortality, under-5 mortality, and life expectancy. We find that advancing economic complexity translates to improved health outcomes through reductions in maternal and under-5 mortality rates as well as increase in life expectancy. We also find that government health expenditure, human capital development, and infrastructural development are potent channels for enhancing health outcomes in contemporary Africa. Additionally, we find that income per capita impedes health outcomes in the region, while the effects of foreign direct investment inflow and governance institutions are mainly muted. We discussed the policy implications of these findings, which mainly underlined the need for increased investment in healthcare and diversification of African economies to improve their economic complexity ranking in order to achieve better health outcomes in the region.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to estimate the impact of stock market development and financial deepening on economic growth in Nigeria and South Africa. Data were collected from the World Bank and the statistical bulletin of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model was used in the study to capture the short and long run relationships among the variables. Findings The results of the estimation for Nigeria showed that only total value of shares traded (TVT) have a statistical significant impact on economic growth in the short run, while market capitalization, private sector credit, turnover ratio (TNR) and broad money have insignificant impact on growth. In the long run however, TVT, broad money and TNR were the only variables that have a significant impact on growth. Stock market has a positive relationship with economic growth but it is more visible in emerging markets like Nigeria. The results for South Africa showed that only broad money have a statistically significant impact on growth in the short run while all other variables except TNR have a significant growth on growth in the long run. The error correction model results showed that the model adjusts to equilibrium in the short run. Thus, about 6% and 27% of the disequilibrium between the independent variables and the dependent variable is corrected each year for the Nigerian and South African economies respectively. Originality/value This paper is among the first to examine the impact of stock market development and financial deepening on economic growth in Nigeria and South Africa comparatively, while adopting the ARDL modeling approach. Hence, this study recommends that policymakers and monetary authorities should formulate policies that will improve the performance of the stock market and encourage more participation. This study emphasizes that the formulation of appropriate policies is not sufficient in itself; proper monitoring and implementation of these policies are instrumental to improving stock market performance and subsequently contributing to economic growth.

This study investigates the effect of resource rent on infrastructural development in Africa and how governance institutions moderate this relationship. The pooled OLS and the dynamic system GMM estimation techniques are adopted with a panel of 52 African economies over the period 2005-2022. We find that resource rent significantly hampers infrastructural development in Africa, thereby reflecting the prevalence of the "natural resource curse" phenomenon. We also find that the unconditional effects of governance institutions are mainly negative and significant, which aptly reflects the presence of weak institutions in Africa. Interestingly, our results also show that low institutional quality in the region intensifies the adverse effect of resource rent, while a higher level of institutional quality in the region moderates the adverse effect of resource rent. These findings remain consistent with components of resource rent, such as forest rent, oil rent and coal rent. Consequently, we emphasize the policy implications of these findings, which mainly underscore the need for policymakers and leaders in Africa to embrace institutional reforms that will ensure transparent resource management, increased infrastructural investment and sustainable infrastructural development on the continent.

This study analysed the impact of climate change and institutional quality on agricultural productivity in Nigeria. The study used agricultural output as a proxy for agricultural productivity. In order to examine the hypotheses under the study, the Johansen co-integration test was used to test the time-series properties of the variables. Adopting the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimation technique, the results from the study revealed that some climate change and institutional quality variables have significant impacts on agricultural productivity in Nigeria. In line with these findings, the study recommended among many others that policy makers and the Nigerian government should strengthen efforts towards strengthening institutional variables, integrating climate smart agriculture and investing in agricultural technology (agro-tech) to enhance and improve agricultural productivity in the economy.

This study examines the conditional effect of trade liberalization on economic growth in West Africa, with a particular focus on the moderating influence of institutional quality. A panel dataset covering 16 West African countries over the period 2017–2022 is employed to estimate a dynamic growth model using the System Generalized Method of Moments (System-GMM), which effectively addresses endogeneity and growth persistence. Robustness checks are conducted using Pooled Ordinary Least Squares (POLS) and Fixed Effects (FE) estimators. The results reveal three key findings. First, trade liberalization has a positive and statistically significant effect on economic growth in the region. Second, although institutional quality exhibits a negative direct effect, likely due to short-run adjustment and compliance costs, the interaction between institutional quality and trade liberalization is positive and strongly significant, demonstrating that governance effectiveness is critical for harnessing the growth benefits of openness. Third, the negative coefficient estimates for financial development and industrialization indicate structural inefficiencies, including credit misallocation and a continued dependence on low-value, resource-based production. Overall, the findings suggest that while West Africa possesses substantial potential for trade-driven development, meaningful gains remain constrained by weak institutional capacity and limited structural transformation. The study recommends targeted governance reforms, improved regulatory enforcement, strategic reallocation of financial resources toward high-value export sectors, and accelerated industrial diversification to ensure that trade liberalization translates into sustained, inclusive economic growth.

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in substantial loss of life and livelihood insecurity worldwide. It has shortened life spans, deteriorated living conditions, and impeded national economic development, particularly affecting supply chains of essential goods and services in Nigeria, Egypt, and Algeria. Objective: This study investigates the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on life expectancy in Nigeria, Egypt, and Algeria by exploring the effects of various pandemic-related indices. Methods: The study employed a GARCH (1,1) model to analyze the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on life expectancy. The data set consisted of daily Covid-19 indices, including the Covid Index (CIX), Medical Index (MIX), Vaccine Index (VIX), and Uncertainty Index (UIX), spanning from 31 December 2019 to 28 April 2021. Life expectancy (LEX) was measured using life expectancy as a percentage of the total population. Control variables included government health expenditure (GEXH) as a percentage of GDP and per capita income (PCI). Results: The findings indicate that the Covid-19 pandemic had significant adverse effects on life expectancy in Nigeria, Egypt, and Algeria. The pandemic's negative impact on life expectancy was robust across all indices, underscoring the detrimental effects of the crisis on public health in these countries. Conclusion: The Covid-19 pandemic has posed a serious threat to life expectancy in Nigeria, Egypt, and Algeria, highlighting the need for policies aimed at improving living standards and extending life expectancy. Governments should prioritize enhancing public health infrastructure and living conditions to mitigate future health crises' long-term impacts.

Since the 1970s, the role of trade liberalization and foreign direct investment in promoting environmental sustainability has been a hot topic in academics. While some research supports the Porter hypothesis, others support the pollution-haven hypothesis. Accordingly, this study aims to determine whether the pollution haven hypothesis holds by examining how trade openness and foreign direct investment affect Nigeria’s environmental sustainability for the period of 1981 to 2021. By deploying the dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) estimation technique, the study outcomes indicate that trade openness and foreign direct investment have a negative and significant long-term effect on Nigeria’s greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, the results of this study support the Potter hypothesis, which holds that emerging nations become centers of advanced and cleaner technology as a result of trade liberalization and foreign direct investment. As a result, the study suggests that the Nigerian government should support the creation of compressed natural gas (CNG) stations and the switch to CNG-powered vehicles. The Nigerian government can also promote investment in the green energy industry by offering tax holidays and other benefits to companies in this field. Furthermore, there should be a widespread public education campaign on the threat posed by global warming and the necessity of planting trees to mitigate the effects of climate change and discourage tree-cutting.

This study assesses the connection between environmental degradation, agro-climate financing, and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) using yearly time series data from 2000 to 2022. The system generalized method of moments (GMM) was employed to tackle endogeneity issues, with robustness checks performed using DOLS and FMOLS to address cross-sectional dependence through robust standard errors. This method revealed important insights into the dynamics of economic growth. The findings show a significant positive connection between the economy’s past success and its current growth. CO2 emissions negatively impact economic growth, demonstrating the detrimental effects of environmental degradation. Agricultural finance has a positive influence on economic growth by boosting productivity and fostering economic growth. However, climate financing has a short-term negative impact on growth owing to high initial costs and inefficiencies, but it promotes long-term growth when combined with agricultural finance. The interaction between CO2 emissions and agricultural finance shows that increasing emissions reduces the benefits of agricultural investments, underscoring the vulnerability of agriculture-dependent economies. Conversely, the interaction of agricultural finance with climate finance enhances economic growth, demonstrating the relevance of combining climate and agricultural investments. Additionally, the study finds that exchange rate stability positively affects growth, while inflation has a negative impact. Robustness checks validate these findings and underscore the need for varied analytical methods to capture economic interactions comprehensively. The study recommends comprehensive policy measures to tackle environmental, agricultural, and climate challenges, promote sustainable growth, and leverage integrated financial solutions for long-term development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This study examines how military expenditure moderates the negative effect of terrorism on economic complexity in Europe. Terrorism is proxied by terrorism-related incidences, fatalities, injuries, and hostages. The study utilizes a panel dataset comprising 33 European economies spanning the period 2011-2022. The primary empirical strategy employed is the Bias-Corrected Method of Moments (BCMM), which effectively addresses potential estimation biases, including cross-sectional dependence, endogeneity, and heterogeneity. The findings reveal a consistently negative impact of terrorism on economic complexity in Europe. Furthermore, a 2.000 threshold level of military expenditure (% GDP) and 4.000 threshold level of military expenditure (% of general government expenditure) will mitigate the negative effects of terrorism fatalities on economic complexity. On the basis of the study's findings, it is recommended to reassess the efficiency of military expenditures in Europe, with surplus funds redirected toward innovation-driven sectors. In addition, policymakers and leaders in Europe should join forces through the Council of Europe (CoE) and the European Union (EU) to tackle the detrimental effects of terrorism on the continent.

Purpose This study investigated the asymmetric effects of changes in policy uncertainty on real sector variables in Brazil, China, India and South Africa. Design/methodology/approach The study used the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) modeling framework. Findings The results showed that both in the long run and short run, rising uncertainty not only increases consumer prices significantly in these economies, but also impedes aggregate and sectoral output growths, and deters investment, employment and private consumption. Contrary to economic expectation, the results also showed that in the long run, declining uncertainty impedes aggregate and sectoral output growths in these economies, and significantly hinders employment in South Africa and Brazil. This suggests that in the long run, economic agents in these economies somewhat behave as if uncertainty is rising. The authors also found significant asymmetric effects in the response of real sector variables to uncertainty both in the long run and short run, which justifies the choice of NARDL framework for this study. Research limitations/implications The sample is limited to Brazil, India, China and South Africa. While Brazil, India and China are three of the most prominent large emerging market economies, South Africa is the largest emerging market economy in Africa. Practical implications To lessen the adverse effects of policy uncertainty observed in the results, there is need for sound institutions and policy regimes that can promote predictable policy responses in these economies so that policy neither serves as a source of uncertainty nor as a channel through which the effects of other shocks are transmitted. Originality/value Apart from using the NARDL framework to capture the asymmetric effects of policy uncertainty, this study also accounted for the sectoral effects of uncertainty in emerging markets.