Remittance,Institutions and Investment Volatility Interactions: An Intercontinental Analysis

Generating massive investment for growth and development has been one of the main policy goals of most economies around the globe. Countries, most especially developing ones, are highly susceptible to investment volatility owing largely to the fragile nature of their economies as well as weaknesses in terms of dysfunctional institutions. Therefore, sound economic management suggests the need to better understand possible sources for mitigating the adverse effects of investment volatility. Remittances have been identified as important capital flows which do a good job of dousing macroeconomic volatilities. It is on this basis that the study sought to uncover the causal relationship between remittances and investment volatility via the intermediating role of institutions. Using a panel of 70 countries and the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator, three insightful outcomes come to the fore. First, remittances played countercyclical roles across the estimated regressions. Second, institutional quality had no significant role in mitigating investment volatility and lastly, the interactive terms of both remittances and institutions significantly mitigated the negative impacts of investment volatility with the exception of the political component of the institutional architecture. Policy suggestions are drawn based on our results.     

Resource mobilisation,institution and inclusive growth in Africa: Evidence from spatial analysis

This study accommodates spatial effects in the nexus between tax resource mobilisation (TRM) institutions and inclusive growth using panel data from 48 African countries. By adopting the spatial Durbin-fixed effect model, the study shows that spatial dependence and interaction matter when modelling TRM, institutions and inclusive growth relationships. It is also explicit that various disaggregated and aggregated tax components have not played significant roles in increasing inclusive growth in Africa, except property tax. The result suggests the need to harness the role of property tax for revenue generation in stimulating inclusive growth in view of its growth benefits over its distortions. Further evidence shows that all individual proxies of African institutions dampen inclusive growth. These results also pinpoint the weak governance structures that constitute huge constraints on the participatory tendencies of economic growth and reflect the institutional exclusiveness inherent in Africa. Regarding the interactive effects of institutions and TRM on inclusive growth, findings further reveal that existing institutions in Africa weaken the tax administration structures in propelling TRM to actualize inclusive growth. The study informs policy implications.     

AN ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF SOME FACTORS INFLUENCING THE LOYALTY OF MEMBERS IN THE WESTERN NIGERIA MARKETING CO-OPERATIVES*, †

The performance of the Western Nigeria Co-operative marketing societies has been unsatisfactory and competition with private traders has proved largely unsuccessful. The disloyalty of members constitutes one of the major handicaps. How can the situation be altered? The answers are sought by formulating a socio-economic model of the loyalty of members. In conclusion, concrete proposals for ensuring a virile regional co-operative movement are suggested.     

Testing the Robustness of Public Spending Determinants on Public Spending Decisions in Nigeria

This study tests the robustness of variables used in determining public spending in Nigeria from 1970 to 2016. This is achieved through the simultaneous use of a symmetric and asymmetric ARDL and Toda–Yamamoto causality procedures. The empirical findings reveal sufficient evidence of asymmetry in the behaviour of policy variables such as oil price, inflation rate, and the exchange rate. Hence, the conclusion that asymmetry significantly exists in key variables, used by Nigerian fiscal authorities for spending decision-making. Also, the asymmetric Toda–Yamamoto causality result reveals that increase in oil price, depreciation in the Naira value, and government revenue are the key determinants of public spending. Hence, the revenue-spend hypothesis. It is recommended that the re-investment of surplus proceeds from oil receipts should be given much priority. Specifically, the re-investment of such revenues into sectors such as manufacturing, construction, and information technology, will speed-up the diversification process of the revenue base; and sufficiently reduce the negative effects a decline in the oil price, and the Naira exchange rate will have on public spending. The policy of inflation targeting by the monetary authority should be sustained to check unwarranted inflationary trajectory; which may have an adverse effect on public spending value.     

An operational econometric model of the Nigerian economy

This paper presents the recent version of a macroeconometric model of the Nigerian economy which is actually in operation for short term forecasting, policy analysis and projections. It derives from a series of modelling attempts and should provide insights into difficulties involved in modelling a major developing economy.     

Resource Price,Macroeconomic Distortions,and Public Outlay: Evidence from Oil-Exporting Countries

This study examines the repercussions of oil price and macroeconomic distortions on government expenditure in 15 oil-exporting countries. Adapting the Pooled Mean Group analytical approach, the long-run findings are indicative of a blend of the Dutch disease and rent-seeking hypothesis of the resource curse theory in oil-exporting countries. These effects crucially impact on the poor growth of the real sector in these countries, needed for diversification of their revenue base. Furthermore, both resource curses account for one of the reasons why fiscal deficits in oil-exporting countries have been on the rise. The country short-run coefficient for the balance of payment, economic growth, and exchange rate also supports the Dutch disease and rent-seeking hypothesis mix found in the long run. Also, the significant negative impact of oil rents in most countries shows that oil-exporting countries have been making attempts at diversifying their income sources; this is because proceeds from oil cannot be relied upon to adequately finance growing government expenditure, due to the volatile nature of oil prices, thus suggesting also that the volatility hypothesis is valid for most oil-exporting countries in the short run.     

‘The City of Our Dream’: Owambe Urbanism and Low‐income Women's Resistance in Ibadan,Nigeria

Ibadan, Nigeria, has been an outlier in the ranking of world‐class cities. But in the past seven years, amidst the circulating Africa Rising narrative, Ibadan has embarked on what I call an Afropolitan Imagineering project of owambe urbanism. Afropolitan Imagineering refers to the production of new images/narratives of Africa and Africans as world‐class and cosmopolitan. Owambe urbanism is a spatio‐temporal neoliberal project concerning destination, arrival and place‐making, which promises a shared and happy future for all urban dwellers. I argue that this promise of happiness is challenged by low‐income women who are cognizant that a shared and happy future is impossible when little effort is made to address social inequality in the present. They thus refuse to be ‘good’ citizens and invoke an alternative urban futurity through their embodied and imagined resistance.     

Understanding the consequences of diversification on financial stability

In this paper, we study the consequences of diversification on financial stability and social welfare using an agent based model that couples the real economy and a financial system. We validate the model against its ability to reproduce several stylized facts reported in real economies. We find that the risk of an isolated bank failure (i.e. idiosyncratic risk) is decreasing with diversification. In contrast, the probability of joint failures (i.e. systemic risk) is increasing with diversification which results in more downturns in the real sector. Additionally, we find that the system displays a “robust yet fragile” behaviour particularly for low diversification. Moreover, we study the impact of introducing preferential attachment into the lending relationships between banks and firms. Finally, we show that a regulatory policy that promotes bank–firm credit transactions that reduce similarity between banks can improve financial stability whilst permitting diversification.

     

Foreign Aid,Governance and Economic Growth in Sub‐Saharan Africa: Does One Cap Fit All?

Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) has been receiving foreign aid for many decades; nonetheless, it ranked among the poorest regions in the world. This study revisits the aid effectiveness debate quantitatively by investigating the relationship among foreign aid, governance and economic growth in SSA using more recent data from 1996 to 2012 and testing for heterogeneity in aid recipient countries. Fundamental questions raised in this study are: does aid work the same way in all regions and group of countries in SSA? Do governance and size of aid matter? Employing the system generalized methods of moments (system GMM) technique, results show that foreign aid has an insignificant negative relationship with economic growth in aggregate SSA. However, one cap does not fit all in SSA as heterogeneity across aid recipients has implications for aid effectiveness. Moreover, governance and size of aid complement each other to improve growth in SSA. This study has been able to show quantitatively that a general policy for countries in SSA is not good enough for aid effectiveness; donors should increase the size of aid, and governance in recipient countries must improve. In conclusion, heterogeneity, governance and size of aid matter for aid effectiveness in SSA.