The present study intends to investigate how the complexity of the economy responds to human capital investment and institutional development in Africa by employing the system GMM on panel data comprising 31 African economies over the period 2011-2020. However, earlier studies tended to ignore these interdependencies. More critically, our results indicate that the development of human capital enables the economic complexity in Africa. On the other hand, governance institutions’ quality in terms of control of corruption, voice and accountability, political stability, and the absence of violence and terrorism do not have any impact on economic complexity. Their effect on governance remains insignificant if governance is measured via government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and the rule of law. This research highlights the importance of diversifying African economies by promoting human capital investments and governance reforms that reduce corruption, ensure transparency and accountability in government, and stabilize politics. Our results also show that infrastructural development and GDP per capita are the major drivers of economic complexity in Africa, whereas international tourism appears to have a significant negative effect. Therefore, we provide several policy suggestions to reflect these insights.

This study investigated how international tourism is impacting on environmental quality and renewable energy use in Africa, and how governance institutions on the continent are moderating these relationships. We employed the system GMM technique with a panel of 31 African economies from 2011 to 2020. We find that while international tourism is not a significant driver of environmental quality in Africa, it is significantly hampering renewable energy use on the continent. We also find that even though the unconditional effects of governance institutions on environmental quality are predominantly muted, their moderation role in the tourism-environmental quality relationship indicates that they offer potent channels for enhancing the contribution of the tourism sector toward improved environmental quality in Africa. Our results further indicate that governance institutions in Africa are significantly hampering the use of renewable energy, while their moderation role on the tourism-renewable energy use relationship is mainly muted. These findings generally highlight the fact that Africa is yet to harness its tourism potentials, while simultaneously dealing with the challenge of weak governance institutions. Among others, we recommended that policymakers and leaders in Africa should work together to harness the tourism potentials of the region and improve the quality of governance institutions.

This study examined how employment and other microeconomic variables, such as spendings on transport, rent, salaries and wages, and other business cost, as well as enterprise location are influencing access to credit of non-agricultural household enterprises in Nigeria. The study departs from other existing studies in two main ways. First, this study decomposed non-agricultural household enterprises into urban and rural enterprises in order to provide deeper policy insights. Second, unlike the bulk of existing studies that used linear regression techniques, this study used the binary logistic regression technique since access to credit, which is the dependent variable, is dichotomous. Cross-sectional data from Nigeria’s 2019 General Household Survey (wave 4) were used. The results show that employment impacts positively and significantly on access to credit by non-agricultural household enterprises. Spendings on transport and other business costs showed significant negative impacts on access to credit by non-agricultural household enterprises, while the roles of other factors, like spending on rent, enterprise location, and spending on salaries and wages, remained predominantly insignificant. We, therefore, stressed the need for policymakers and leaders in Nigeria to work together and exploit job creation as a channel for promoting access to credit and overall enterprise performance in Nigeria.

Access to credit is the desire of every developing economy as well as a coping strategy in starting up and expanding businesses. Hence, this study critically examines how access to credit responds to loan repayment by households of non-farmers in Nigeria. To achieve this purpose, some important variables like spending on transport, other business costs, salaries/wages and rent were included in the model. Other variables in the model include age and location for the households of non-farmers. The study shows that loan repayment by households of non-farmers and their place of residence are significant drivers of access to finance in Nigeria while other characteristics of non-farmers such as spending on transport, other business costs, salaries/wages, rent and age are muted throughout.

The study focuses on how rational expectations influence augmented Philips curve hypothesis in sub-Saharan African countries using dynamic robust instrumental variable system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach, with panel data from twenty-six countries in the region for the period 2009 to 2016. The two stage system GMM results show that with rational expectations on augmented Philips curve, the relationship between inflation and unemployment is positive and significant. When output gap is used as a proxy for unemployment in the model, the results reveal that the relationship between inflation and unemployment is negative but statistically insignificant. The findings suggest that the rational expectations of inflation on augmented Philips curve hypothesis are invalid in Sub-Sahara African countries. This lead to the recommendation that proper policy for the provision of enabling environment for ease of doing business to enhance productivity should be vigorously pursued in order to reduce inflation and unemployment rate.

This study investigated how infrastructural development is responding to international tourism and institutional quality in Africa using the system GMM technique and a panel of 31 African economies from 2011 to 2020. Existing studies have generally ignored these relationships. We find that international tourism is an essential driver of infrastructural development in Africa. We also find that the quality of governance institutions significantly promotes infrastructural development in Africa when measured using government effectiveness, rule of law, and regulatory quality, but remain muted when measured using control of corruption, voice and accountability, and political stability. We highlighted the implications of these findings in terms of diversifying the economies of Africa through investments in tourism and reforming the governance institutions in the region to combat corruption, entrench transparent and accountable governance, and promote political stability. Interestingly, our findings further indicate that human capital development, GDP per capita, and remittances are important drivers of infrastructural development in Africa, while the role of foreign direct investment remained significantly negative. We provided policy recommendations based on these findings.

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.

Following the paucity of empirical studies on the effects of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on global retail energy markets and the need to reassess the markets for the prevalence of rockets and feathers effect and rent-seeking behavior by retailers during the Covid-19 pandemic, we studied the asymmetric response of the markets to changes in EPU and crude oil costs. We estimated nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag models over the period 2004 M11-2020 M6 using data for global and domestic EPUs as well as gasoline, automotive diesel, domestic heating oil, industrial fuel oil and crude oil markets. We find that rising uncertainty significantly increases retail energy prices both in the short-run and long-run, especially in UK, Japan and Europe. The asymmetric patterns show that many of the markets respond more to rising uncertainty than declining uncertainty, suggesting the prevalence of the “fear of the unknown”. Our results also showed significant evidence of rockets and feathers effect in all the countries, except Canada. Furthermore, the likelihood of rent-seeking by retailers was observed in the diesel and domestic heating oil markets in Italy, UK, and France. The study concluded that these findings have important policy implications, particularly as they relate to consumer welfare, antitrust policies and stability of the policy environment.

This study examined the influence of credit access on the total sales performance of household non-farm enterprises in Nigeria. We adopted the binary logistic regression model approach and used cross-sectional data from the general household survey (GHS) conducted in Nigeria in the period 2017/2018. Apart from the core variables, other covariates included in the analysis are official registration with the government, employee gender and age of enterprise. The findings indicate that credit access positively and significantly influences the total sales of household non-farm enterprises in Nigeria. Interestingly, the study established that official registration with government significantly impedes the total sales performance of the enterprises. This suggests that the Nigerian bureaucracy significantly retards the performance of household non-farm enterprises. The study, therefore, concludes that there is need for policies that will not only enhance credit access by these enterprises, but will also reform the Nigerian bureaucracy so that they can actively support the growth and development of these enterprises.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how COVID-19 pandemic including some coping strategies such as hand wash with soap and food consumption influences work operation or performance of nonfarm household enterprises (NHEs) in Nigeria using 2020 Living Standard Measurement Survey data of 1728 sample size. This study departs from existing study in two ways: first, the study employs multinomial logistic regression technique to ascertain the determinants of work performance of nonfarm household enterprises in Nigeria. Second, the study focuses on nonfarm enterprises such as petty trade, road side automobile and cab drivers. The results show that COVID-19 pandemic is significant with negative influence on the work operation of NHEs in Nigeria. The result of the study also reveals that coping strategy such as hand wash with soap during the pandemic is an important driver of work performance or operation of NHEs in Nigeria. Another coping strategy like food consumption by nonfarm household enterprises shows insignificant influence on work operation which implies that there is no relationship between food consumption and work operation by NHEs in Nigeria. The policy recommendation of this study, among others, is that policies should focus on procurement of sanitary material for public use. This can be achieved through public sensitisation in terms of organising workshops and conferences.

The purpose of this study are of twofold: first to examine the validity of augmented Philips curve hypothesis. The second to examine how rational expectations of inflation rate with unemployment rate influences augmented Philips curve hypothesis in Sub-Saharan African countries. To achieve these two objectives, the study uses dynamic sys-Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) technique for the analysis. The study draws a panel data for twenty-six countries in the region for the period 2009-2016. The importance of this study cannot be under estimated. The study helps to show the tradeoff between inflation rate and unemployment. The estimation results show that the validity of augmented Philips curve with support of rational expectations of inflation rate and unemployment rate is positive. But when the output gap is used as proxy for unemployment rate, the validity of augmented Philips curve hypothesis is negative. The result also shows that the rational expectations of inflation rate with unemployment rate has positive and significant influence on augmented Philips curve hypothesis in Sub-Saharan African countries. This lead to the recommendation that proper policy for the provision of enabling environment for ease of doing business to enhance productivity should be given an adequate attention to ensure a robust employment creation and reduction in inflation rate.

The purpose of this study is to examine how delayed payment obligation influences household purchase decision in Nigeria. Unlike the large of existing studies, this study used binary regression model estimation and draws a dataset of 2019 General Household Survey with sample size of 2911 household for the analysis. The stylized facts from the dataset revealed more share of rural household than their counterparts in urban household. Interestingly, the results show that delayed payment obligation is positive and significantly influence purchase decision of household in Nigeria. But when the household is disaggregated into rural and urban household, the result shows that some household that barrowed from friends and family and household that reduced food consumption expenditure have positive and significant influence on purchase decision in both rural and urban household while household that received assistance from friends and family has positive and significant influence on purchase decision by rural household. This study recommends delayed payment obligation for important factor to drive purchase decision by household. This could be achieved through policy formulation that will promote delayed payment obligation.

This study investigated the influence of access to credit on the physical capital stock of non-farm household enterprises in Nigeria. The study used the binary logistic regression technique and Nigeria’s 2018-19 General Household Survey data (Wave 4). We find that the influence of access to credit on the physical capital stock of nonfarm household enterprises in Nigeria is positive and significant. This implies that access to credit enhances the capacity of these enterprises to procure physical capital stock. Our results also indicate that expenditure on raw materials, profit, and years of operations are other key drivers of physical capital stock accumulation. Consequently, we conclude that there is a need for policies to enhance access to credit by non-farm household enterprises in Nigeria to strengthen their operations on a sustainable basis.

Abstract Introduction: Educational achievement has remained the common yardstick for assessing human capital development across the world. However, it has been observed that Nigeria is one of the developing countries facing the challenge of low level of academic achievement by employees in the university system, which in turn has grave implications for the overall performance of the Nigerian university system in terms of efficient work delivery. Methods: This study adopts a robust and stratified sampling technique to select 4,122 employees in selected federal universities in the southeast of Nigeria and uses structural questionnaire and binary logistic regression to analyse the effect of employment status on academic achievement in South East Nigeria. Results: The findings show that employment status negatively and significantly influences the academic achievement of employees in Nigerian universities. Discussion: The major focus of this study is to examine the impact of employment status on educational achievement in the universities for southeast, Nigeria. To drive more effective and efficient service delivery in the universities, there is need for adequate salary enhancement for employees in order to motivate them to strive for higher educational attainments. Limitations: The study was carried out in federal universities in Nigeria. It is expected to expand the study to cut across both private, states in Nigeria for effective and efficient comparison among the universities found in southeast geopolitical zones. Conclusion: The study concludes that government should continuously motivate these employees so that they can strive for higher educational attainments.

This study examined the nexus between Exchange Rate and Non-Oil Export in Nigeria using time series data from 1985 to 2018. Secondary data were sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and World Bank Development Indicators (WDI). The study adopted Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model and it was fitted with Seven variables; namely, Non-oil Export (NOE), Exchange Rate (EXR), Credit to Private Sector (CPS), Trade Openness (OPN), Inflation (INF), Interest Rate (INT) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The results showed that the exchange rate has a positive and significant impact on non-oil export in Nigeria. Therefore, the study recommended that the Government should encourage international trade to boost non-oil export and increase foreign exchange earnings. Also, there is a need for the government to improve the financial institutions to make investment funds available. Lastly, there is a need to revisit the export-oriented policy to ensure that the non-oil sector is well catered for.

Inadequate availability of credit access is one of the major problems facing household enterprises in developing countries, especially Nigeria. Despite various government interventions aimed at solving this problem, it is still perceived that credit access is a serious challenge facing these enterprises in Nigeria. Hence, this study examined the impact of credit access on the performance of total stock of input supply of non-farm household enterprises in Nigeria. Unlike the bulk of existing studies, we employed multinomial logit regression and used the 2018 General Household Survey data. The stylised facts from the data revealed that non-farm household enterprises in urban areas have greater access to credit than their counterparts in rural areas. Interestingly, the findings indicate that even though a large chunk of the non-farm household enterprises in our sample face the challenge of access to credit, credit access nonetheless impacts significantly and positively on total stock of input supply of non-farm household enterprise in Nigeria. Among others, we recommended that credits to non-farm household enterprises should be adequately monitored not only to enhance the performance of these enterprises but also to ensure that the funds are not diverted to other uses.

The main focus of this study is to estimate the influence of the main startup capital source on credit access participation by household nonfarmenterprises. The General Household Survey data for 2018 was adopted to construct a measure of credit access participation. Through binary logistic regression estimation, the result shows that main start-up capital source positively and significantly influences credit access by household nonfarm businesses in Nigeria. This also implies that household nonfarm enterprises that borrowed as main start-up capital source have better chances of credit access participation when compared to those household nonfarm enterprises who do not borrow. However, this study suggests that there is a need for policies that motivate individuals or a group of individuals to borrow as their main start-up capital source in Nigeria, with a view to strengthening their operations on a sustainable basis.

Purpose Enhancing household consumption and reducing inequality are among the fundamental goals of many developing countries. The purpose of this study therefore is to disaggregate household consumption expenditure into food and non-food and, thus, decompose inequality into within- and between-groups. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts generalised entropy (GE) measures. Second, the study uses regression-based inequality decomposition to ascertain the determinants of inequality in food and non-food expenditure using household demographic and socioeconomic characteristics as covariates. Findings The results show that non-food expenditure is the major source of inequality in household consumption expenditure in both urban and rural areas with inequality coefficients of above 0.6 compared to about 0.4 for food expenditure. The decompositions also show that within-group inequalities for non-food and food expenditure are, respectively, 0.97 and 0.365 using the Theil index, while between-group inequalities for non-food and food are, respectively, 0.016 and 0.035. Furthermore, the regression-based inequality decompositions show that variables such as living in rural areas, household size, household dwelling and household dwelling characteristics account for the significant proportion of inequality in food and non-food expenditure. Originality/value The policy implication of the findings, among others, is that policies should focus on addressing inequality within rural and urban areas, especially with respect to non-food expenditure than in inequality existing between urban and rural areas. These non-food expenditures include expenditure in education, health, energy, accommodation, water and sanitation.