Explaining Nigeria’s Economic Growth: Balance of Payments Constrained Growth Approach With External and Internal Imbalances

This study employs a system estimator to examine the validity of balance of payment constrained growth model in the case of Nigeria. We modified a version of Thirlwall’s model developed by Soukiazis et al. (2014) to incorporate the role of foreign contents in growth process. The new version of the model improves significantly explaining the growth in Nigeria. The outcome of this study shows that imported intermediate and capital goods significantly contribute to manufacturing export and domestic investment growth. However, high reliance on the imports of intermediate goods constrains economic growth. World real income exerts significant effect on aggregate exports, similar arguments could not be established when the manufacturing export sector is considered in isolation. Our results reveal that economic growth in Nigeria is constrained by internal and external imbalances. The study recommends among others increasing the manufactured export share, efficient use of oil rents as well as containing budget deficit within acceptable threshold to position the economy on a viable growth path.     

From plan to market in the health sector?: China’s experience

Countries worldwide confront the challenge of defining and achieving appropriate roles for government and market forces in the health sector. China—as both a developing and a transitional economy—represents an important case. This paper uses an international comparative perspective to examine how the health of China’s population and other aspects of health system performance changed during the reform era. We draw on standard public finance and health economics theory, as well as the more recent incomplete-contracting theory of property rights, to summarize the comparative advantages of government and market for financing and delivery of health services, particularly in developing and transitional economies. We then describe and analyze against this theoretical background the transformation of China’s health sector and recent commitment of government funds to move toward universal coverage.     

Japan’s return to gold: Turning points in the value of the yen during the 1920s

We identify turning points in the value of the yen during the 1920s to determine which factors were perceived by market participants as affecting Japan’s probability of returning to the gold standard. The 1920s were marked by military expansionism, political turmoil, and other dramatic political and institutional events. We conclude that changes of power between the Kenseikai and Seiyukai parties and worsening diplomatic relations with China were primarily responsible for turning points in the value of the yen. The democracy movement and the associated expansion of suffrage seem not to have been viewed as important by contemporaries.     

The Impact of Lending to Women on Household Vulnerability and Women’s Empowerment: Evidence from India

Impact evaluation studies routinely find that lending to women benefits their households. However, a number of them also find that this may not empower the women concerned. This seemingly paradoxical conclusion is confirmed by our study with respect to a lending program in rural India. We investigate this result by examining a combination of loan-use data and borrower-testimonies. We find that loans procured by women are often diverted into enhancing household’s assets and incomes. This combined with woman’s lack of co-ownership of family’s productive assets, we conclude, results in her disempowerment. If empowering women is a crucial objective, then the patriarchal hold on productive assets must be challenged.     

The Fed’s reaction to the stock market during the great depression: Fact or artefact?

A notable feature of the 1920s and 1930s is the volatility in several key macroeconomic aggregates, and this feature used to econometrically identify the reaction of the Fed to stock market developments. The volatility of economic activity may have contributed to deepening the divisions among policy-makers about how the Fed ought to respond to stock price developments. Relying on the technique of [Rigobon, R. 2003. Identification through heteroskedasticity. Review of Economics and Statistics 85, 777–792], volatility is used as an instrument to estimate the Fed’s response to the stock market. Other identification assumptions based on structural VARs produce compatible results. Fed behavior appeared to have changed following the stock market crash of 1929. Consistent with the Riefler-Burgess doctrine, interest rates and stock returns are negatively related. I conclude that, prior to the stock market crash of 1929, a form of benign neglect explains Fed behavior. Thereafter, the Fed reacts only slightly more aggressively to stock market developments.