Determinants of Well‐being and Poverty Changes in Cameroon: 2001–2007

Abstract: This paper identifies and decomposes sources that explain household economic well‐being in Cameroon. It uses the 2001 and 2007 Cameroon Household Consumption Surveys, synthetic variables constructed by the multiple correspondence analysis and econometric approaches that correct for potential endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity in a step‐wise manner and simultaneously. Sources of well‐being that explain poverty are then decomposed into growth and redistribution components. Variables that significantly explain household economic well‐being are education, health, household size, fraction of active household members, working in the formal sector and area of residence. Decomposition analysis shows that the growth components largely account for changes in deprivation in terms of each regressed‐income source. With the exception of the income source education, redistribution components slowed down progress in alleviating shortfall in other regressed‐income sources. These results have implications for public interventions that affect education and health for all, labour market participation and infrastructure development.     

Manipulation of voting schemes with restricted beliefs

In this paper we define manipulation with restricted beliefs as the possibility for some voter to have an insincere preference ordering that dominates the sincere one within the given individual beliefs over other agents’ preferences. We then show that all non-dictatorial voting schemes are manipulable in this sense, up to a given threshold.     

Corporate Governance in Nigeria

In recent years, international economic pressures have induced Nigeria to adopt a program of economic liberalization and deregulation. Advocates of the reforms tout their potential not only for generating greater economic growth, but also for contributing to more responsible corporate governance. Sceptics abound. This paper provides an account of the nature of corporate governance in Nigeria and investigates the prospects for recent reforms contributing to more responsible governance and development.     

Violations of Independence under Amendment and Plurality Rules with Anonymous Voters

Under the impartial anonymous culture assumption (IAC), we evaluate the proportion of anonymous profiles at which the amendment and plurality voting procedures violate the property of independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA). We also examine the relation to single-peakedness of preferences and election of a Condorcet winner.      

Migrant remittances and financial inclusion among households in Nigeria

This article investigates the impact of remittances on financial inclusion, using the 2009 World Bank’s Migration and Remittances Household Survey data for Nigeria. An instrumental variable estimation technique was used to estimate the impact of remittances on financial inclusion, and migrant network effect was used as an instrument to control for potential endogeneity between remittance and financial inclusion. This article finds that the receipt of remittances increases the probability of using formal financial services, such as deposit accounts and Internet/mobile banking. This article concludes that reducing barriers and costs to remittance inflows can improve the access to and use of formal financial services in Nigeria, which can lead to an increase in funds for investments and the economic growth of the country.     

Impact of Human Capital Endowments on Inequality of Outcomes in Cameroon

This paper evaluates the impact of human capital endowments on measured inequality in Cameroon. We first estimate determinants of household economic well‐being (HEW) in which human capital endowments are considered as endogenous effort‐related regressors, while controlling for exogenous circumstance‐related variables. Second, we simulate alternative counterfactual distributions of HEW: one in which human capital endowments are equalized; and the other in which variations are entirely attributable to the unobservable terms. Finally we compare inequality in the factual distribution of household well‐being with inequality in each of the simulated distributions. Direct and indirect exogenous opportunity‐inducing circumstances are inequality‐augmenting, whereas human capital endowments are inequality‐reducing in the actual distribution. Education and health interventions will ameliorate well‐being and mitigate inequality. Thus, leveling the playing ground for individuals to have equitable exposure to education, health and labor market participation is required for a low‐income country like Cameroon to enhance equity and sustainable household economic growth.     

Divisia monetary aggregates and US GDP nowcasting

ABSTRACT

This article nowcasts US quarterly real GDP growth rate with dynamic factor model (DFM) using Divisia Monetary Aggregate Index, Divisia M1, M2, M3, and exploits information from a large, unbalanced panel data. GDP nowcasting is evaluating the current quarter GDP given the available economic data up to the point when the nowcasting is conducted. GDP data is published quarterly with a substantial lag, while many monetary and financial decisions are made at a higher frequency. Therefore, nowcasting GDP has become an increasingly important task for central banks. This article uses DFM to nowcast GDP, compares the nowcasting results from DFM with the simple sum monetary aggregate M1, M2, M3, to the Model with weighted corresponding Divisia Index, then calculates the contributions of the Divisia Monetary index to US GDP nowcasting.     

Non-linear Effects of Inflation on Economic Growth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

This paper presents one of the first empirical studies that employ the regression kink model with an unknown threshold to estimate the turning point in the relationship between inflation and economic growth. To deal with the asymptotic non-normality of the regression function, we use a numerical delta bootstrap method and inference methods in the construction of confidence intervals for the regression function. Our estimated threshold suggests that, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, inflation rates lower than 17.2% would drive economic growth, but any inflation rate beyond that threshold will harm the growth. The Congolese policymakers should be aware of this threshold in the implementation of any inflation-targeting policy instruments or strategies.     

Strategic Manipulation in Committees Using the Plurality Rule: Alternative Concepts and Frequency Calculations

This paper suggests an evaluation of the plurality rule according to how much it can be manipulated by individuals. We analyze strategic voting with reference not only to the usual notion of Nash equilibrium but also to some weaknesses of this notion, depending on the assumptions about how the individual agents choose their strategies. We provide two types of results for each concept of equilibrium: First, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for a profile to be an equilibrium when the plurality rule is used; and second, we present formulas giving the exact frequencies of unstable situations in the three-alternative case.