Infrastructure systems are essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), yet they face increasing risks from natural hazards—especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where infrastructure systems are often inadequate and institutional capacities are limited. This study presents a large-scale bibliometric analysis of 23,763 publications indexed in the Web of Science from 1960 to 2025, focused on the intersection of infrastructure and natural hazards in LMICs. We examined publication trends, author and study site geography, and thematic coverage of infrastructure and natural hazard types, while introducing sentiment analysis of publication metadata and topological mapping of research categories as novel approaches to capture research tone, urgency, and cross-domain linkages. Our findings reveal that although related publications have increased over time, LMICs remain significantly underrepresented in the literature, with only a few—such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Vietnam—receiving relatively more attention. This underrepresentation is mirrored in authorship patterns: participation from LMIC-based researchers is limited, and international collaboration is dominated by non-LMICs, with intra-LMIC partnerships particularly rare. Infrastructure topics such as social services, transportation, and water systems dominate the literature, while telecommunication, coastal protection, and green infrastructure are critically overlooked. Sentiment analysis suggests increasing concerns in hazard-prone regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, and the Middle East. This study highlights the need for more geographically inclusive, thematically balanced, and interdisciplinary research agendas. Expanding representation across LMICs, increasing local scholarly participation, addressing neglected infrastructure sectors, and recognizing region-specific challenges are essential for supporting more resilient and equitable infrastructure systems under intensifying natural hazard risks.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are crucial to Nigeria's economy, fostering entrepreneurship and innovation across industries, yet they encounter internal and external institutional barriers hampering their growth and productivity. This study investigates the impact of institutional challenges such as government bureaucracy, corruption, regulatory complexity, import limitations, etc., on the Nigerian SMEs, utilizing transaction costs and new institutional economic frameworks to identify barriers to SME productivity growth. Through a comprehensive review of literature and empirical studies, the research unveils the interconnected challenges facing Nigerian SMEs and their profound effects on economic development. At the national level, government bureaucracy, corruption, speech restrictions, and import limitations present significant hurdles to SME productivity, hindering operating efficiency, trust, and innovation. Regional assessments highlight diverse challenges across Nigeria, particularly in the North Central and South West regions, necessitating tailored interventions and strategic changes for a conducive business environment. The study concludes with recommendations to address institutional impediments and unlock the full potential of Nigerian SMEs, advocating for simplified regulatory frameworks, enhanced anti-corruption measures, and the promotion of government stability.

This chapter covers compliance and how it affects the banking sector in Africa. Compliance is a governance system that equips a bank to act in accordance with the internal and external regulatory and supervisory requirements. It helps a bank to act within the law and survive through growth and profitability. Partial compliance is the same as total non-compliance, which has caused large banks to collapse, and others have been fined millions of dollars. The key lesson is, therefore: Comply or fail. Although the African banking sector has recorded increased market activity, its efficiency and stability are still below the global average. The country-specific analysis shows that whereas the stability of banks in Morocco is robust those in Ghana, Botswana and DR. Congo are fragile. This instability of banks in these countries has enormous implications for banks management and regulatory authorities in Africa.

This study examines the subjective and objective effect of access to finance on the performance and growth of MSMEs in the services sector in Nigeria. The study used a cross-sectional dataset from the 2014 World Bank Enterprise Surveys database. The study employed the Ordinary Least Squares regression approach to investigate the effect of access to finance on the ability to create employment by MSMEs in the services sector in Nigeria. This study found that MSMEs face credit constraints as the majority (77.56%) of the sampled firms indicated access to finance as the main obstacle, although in different degrees (subjective effect). Also, the study found a negative and significant relationship between access to finance constraint and employment growths (objective effect). In light of these findings, the study recommends that the government should encourage financial institutions to create cheaper and more accessible credit for MSMEs, through favourable tax regimes or incentives in order to reduce the unemployment in the country. In addition, other policies that encourage a reduction in lending interest rate (such as a credit guarantee scheme) should be put in place so as to enable MSMEs to access more credit at a cheaper interest rate.

This study is the second and concluding part of the study that feature in volume 5(1) of this journal. It examines the impact of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) membership on Economic Growth and corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). A pooled cross-sectional panel study on 46 countries in SSA from 1996 to 2016 was employed. The results show that EITI membership and its statistical interaction with resource dependence have a moderately positive effect on reducing the resource curse on implementing countries by increasing GDP per capita. However, the results do not indicate any significant reduction in the level of corruption associated with governance in the region through EITI membership. The research concludes that the EITI has potential value and should continue to be used as a mechanism to increase transparency in the resource-curse economy. The implementation period for most member countries is, however, still in its infancy and it will be possible to assess the more success of the EITI membership with the passage of time.

This study explored the price reactions of shares moving in and out of Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) Top 40 Index by applying three models to calculate the abnormal returns of the stocks; namely: the market model, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) using leveraged betas and CAPM using unleveraged betas. An event study methodology was used to measure the abnormal returns around the event date windows. The average abnormal returns (AARs) and cumulative average abnormal returns (CAARs) were tested for statistical significance for various windows. The three models used show increasing (decreasing) CAARs for additions (deletions) when examined over the longer-term windows; however, CAARs showed mixed results for short-term cumulative windows. The study found price reversal for stock prices over the longer-term horizon for prior and post events. The stock price AARs for the pre-announcement date were found to be significant for the stocks to be deleted from the index, but not statistically significant for additions. There were higher asymmetric abnormal average returns for the deletions and additions when using the market model approach. The study further found that the deletion from the index and addition to the index experienced positive and negative AARs respectively on a change day of the event. This implies that it is possible to earn average abnormal returns. However, such anomalies should disappear if the market becomes more efficient.

This study reviews the theoretical literature concerning the resource curse as it pertains to the impact of natural resources upon economic growth and corruption in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and how the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) membership can be of help. The EITI is an international standard promoting open and transparent resource governance through disclosure mechanisms in the resource value chain. Corruption has been associated with less-than-average economic growth in resource-rich countries. This research concludes that the theoretical review found that through the dissemination of disclosures in the natural resource sector, the EITI can potentially reduce the prevalence of corruption in implementing countries in SSA and it can address negative economic growth outcomes associated with resource abundance. However, there is not much evidence empirically needed to suggest this.

The scale of diffusion of mobile wireless broadband technology and its transformational effect across all sectors of the economy cannot be over emphasised. It enables the creation of new business processes/product innovation, thereby boosting job creation, as well as raising economic growth and productivity. This suggests that the mobile broadband is a general-purpose technology capable of producing a protracted critical mass effect at a certain threshold of penetration. It is against this backdrop that this paper examines the impact of mobile broadband on economic growth in Nigeria. Using the Endogenous Growth Model, we employ ARDL Bounds Testing Approach and Toda Yamamoto Granger Causality test on quarterly data from 2001 to 2016, to estimate the growth effect of mobile broadband. The findings show that mobile broadband is impacting economic growth positively in the Nigerian economy. It is therefore imperative for policymakers to design policies that will increase access to broadband infrastructure to both the unserved and underserved. It is also imperative to enact policies and regulations that can stimulate the economic impact of mobile broadband technology by strengthening the capacity of the economy to fully absorb the transformational benefits and make productive use of it as a General-Purpose Technology.

This study evaluates the impact of oil price shocks on the banking sector profitability of an oil-dependent, bank-based Nigerian economy. The study used a dataset of 12 commercial banks that controls about 76 per cent of the Nigeria banking industry assets for a period between 2006 and 2015 and covering two major price shock events. The study tested the impact of oil price shocks on Nigerian banking system profitability as well as the mechanism of transmission (direct or indirect) using system generalised method of moment (GMM). The study found a significant impact of oil price shocks on the Nigeria bank profitability and indicated that the transmission mechanism is direct unlike previous study on the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries, which indicated that the transmission mechanism is via indirect macroeconomic variables. Oil and gas sector concentration appears to be the key driver of the direct transmission mechanism. The transmission of the impact of oil price shocks to the Nigeria commercial bank is through the Domestic Systemically Important Banks (DSIBs). The study also found the existence of profit persistence phenomenon in the Nigeria banking system. The banking institutions should develop a lending portfolio diversification strategy that will mitigate against portfolio concentration in the oil and gas sector. There is also the need to implement revenue diversification strategy to enhance their non-interest generating income and thereby reducing dependence on interest income from the lending portfolio. Most importantly, financial institutions need to manage the procyclicality of their lending strategy and maintain a strong lending standard in order to minimise adverse selection during the positive oil price shocks so that during the reversal or negative oil price shocks the quality of their portfolio will still be high. This study also provides insights for the Central Bank of Nigeria in articulating macro-prudential policies to address financial fragility and drive financial system stability as banking profitability has been identified as an important predictor of financial crises. Furthermore, the framework on domestic systemically important banks (DSIBs) must be proactively implemented as the study indicates that DSIBs play significant role in channelling the impact of oil price shocks on the overall banking system.

This paper investigated the changes in competitive behaviour of banks in sub-Saharan Africa, following the 2007/2008 global financial crisis. Using 481 bank-year observations from an unbalanced panel of 83 banks from six countries over the period 2008–2013. We employed the Panzar-Rosse model of firm competition, and found that the degree of competition among banks in Sub-Saharan Africa increased. This increase is due to the effect of reform/liberalisation policies, largely initiated in the pre-crisis era. The success that followed via the development of banking systems, nonetheless moderated at the onset of the 2007/2008 financial crisis. System instabilities, which were characteristic of a post-crisis period, exposed deficiencies in regulation and asymmetric incentives for bank management. A significant recalibration of prudential policies followed, as regulators sought to restore system stability, which again had an impact in altering competitive conduct of banks. Policymakers should continue to develop and promote policies geared towards the development of financial intermediation and improved competitive conduct of banks in sub-Saharan Africa. JEL Classifications: D41, D42, D43, E32, E44, F36

This study seeks to evaluate the relationship between firm size and the net job creation in the Nigerian economy. The essence of this study is to ascertain if MSMEs are actually fulfilling the significant role purported to it by the literature in terms of employment generation. This is to ensure a proper country specific understanding of the importance of MSMEs in employment generation so that when clamouring for policy makers' attention on MSMEs, it will be with a clear and deep understanding of the significant role MSMEs play in the Nigerian economy. One of the major macroeconomic policies of any economy is to reduce the unemployment rate to the barest minimum. However, unemployment rate has become a menace that is confronting many economies, developed and developing alike, and specifically, the Nigerian economy. This problem of unemployment was exacerbated by the advent of the 2007 global financial crisis that originated from the United State of America. Compounding the problem further for Nigeria, is the recent crash in the price of petroleum in the world commodity market. Thus, leading to a reduction in the fiscal revenue with a concomitant effect on the rising unemployment. The study employed dataset for 473 enterprises across all sectors of the economy comprising 110 micro enterprises, 218 small scale enterprises, 116 medium scale enterprises and 29 large scale enterprises. The dataset was sourced from the 2014 World Bank Enterprise survey on Nigeria. The variables employed in this study as indicators of employment generation include gross job creation, net job destruction and net job creation for sampled firms. The non-parametric variance analysis that uses the locally-weighted scatterplot smoothing (LOWESS) method proposed by Cleveland (1979) and modified by Neumark et. al (2008) was employed to determine if small businesses are net creators or destroyers of jobs in Nigeria. Our result found that MSMEs performed better than large firms in term of employment generation, with Small and Medium size enterprises performing exceedingly. Empirical evidence emanating from this study confirms the theoretical literature expounded by Birch (1979) which states that small businesses are the most important source of employment generation in any economy. The policy implication of this study is that any targeted intervention to reduce unemployment should focus MSMEs, as this study as confirmed that small businesses are actually a net creator of jobs. Furthermore, MSMEs development centres should be encouraged so as to stimulate MSMEs growth

This study uses the World bank enterprise survey data for Nigeria to examines Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) productivity rate in the Nigerian economy. The study explores factors that constrain MSMES output growth in Nigeria. Some of the factors identified include huge infrastructural gap, inadequate institutional support and low access to credit. The resultant effect is a low investment commitment amongst MSMEs thus hampering the productivity of MSMEs in the Nigerian economy. The MSMEs productivity growth rate was measured using annual sales of firms from the World bank enterprise survey data for Nigeria. This research employs the non-parametric variance estimation using the locally-weighted scatterplot smoothing (LOWESS) method on three sets of two-points data (2006 and 2003, 2008 and 2002, and finally 2012 and 2009) of annual fiscal sales for each category of firms comprising micro, small, medium and large firms. The result shows that the small businesses have a negative productivity growth rate in Nigeria. This in line with IFC (2013) which found that small businesses have the least productivity growth rate amongst firms of all sizes. However, this study departs from IFC findings which states that small businesses’ low productivity growth rate is tenable across all the sectors of the economy. The study found that small businesses actually recorded high productivity growth rate in some subsectors of the economy that specializes in product customization such as garment and furniture. Therefore, this study validates the flexible specialization theory that emphases the economic importance of MSMEs in the post-industrial era where product customization is the new order of production. The policy implication of this study is that any targeted intervention in the MSMEs sub-sector of the economy designed to increase productivity, should be channeled into the subsector with the most employee specialization as well as product customization.Keyword(s): MSMEs, small business, Output, Productivity, JEL Classifications: P42 M13 O55

This paper provides conceptual insights on the economic impact of project cost overrun and schedule delays on infrastructure procurement in developing countries with huge infrastructure deficit in Sub-Saharan Africa. Projects cost overruns and schedule delay are a major and widespread problem in infrastructure procurement the world over. It has received a lot of attention in the recent past. However, the literature reveals that extant studies on project overruns are heavily skewed towards causative factors, with little or no attention to the effects it has on the economy as a whole. The paucity of studies on the effects of project cost overrun and schedule delay will further reinforce the imperative to reacquaint policymakers and infrastructure developers, as well as project financiers with the gravity and import of the problem for infrastructural development in particular and the wider economy in general. The study undertakes an exploratory approach drawing from a wide range of secondary information and materials obtained from policy documents, study reports and peer-reviewed articles. The findings show that cost overrun and schedule delay in infrastructure procurement can have a damaging economic effect ranging from allocative inefficiency of scarce resources, further delays, contractual disputes, claims and litigation to project failure and total abandonment. The study recommends project management capacity-building for infrastructure developers, project managers as well as a number of innovative control mechanisms such as reference class forecasting, public-private partnership and computer-aided cost estimating tools including artificial neural networks, data mining, building information modelling as well as fuzzy neural inference model, genetic algorithms, and stochastic simulation to curb the menace of the problem.

Premised on economic uncertainty and political instability indicators, this paper examined the role of uncertainty as theyaffected the inflow of FDI into the agricultural subsector of the Nigerian economy given that such empirical work are limited.Employing secondary time series data which spanned 1970 to 2008, on an investment-cointegrated Error Correction Model,this study attempted to fill the gap. Following ADF test for stationarity and a Johenson cointegration test, we found acointegrating relationship among the variables as affirmed by the error correction mechanism parameter. It was revealed thatFDI positively impacted on agriculture not only in the short run but also in the long run. This will also engender domesticincome diversification which will boost agricultural sector and stem the erstwhile neglect of the sector. Further, politicalinstability adversely affected agricultural investments in the long run. An enabling environment should be provided to attractinvestment on short and long term basis. Also exchange rate fluctuation, high lending and inflation rates problems should beaddressed.