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Following the growing body of the literature assessing the governance and environmental sustainability nexus, the present study complements the extant literature by assessing how environmental sustainability can be promoted by means of policies that entail the simultaneous implementation of six governance dynamics, notably, political governance (political stability/ no violence and 'voice & accountability'), economic governance (government effectiveness and regulatory quality) and institutional governance (corruption-control and the rule of law). The study focuses on 44 African countries for the period 2000 to 2020 and the empirical evidence is based on the generalized method of moments (GMM). Our findings indicate that the individual indicators of governance exert a positive influence on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, the combined or composite governance indicator yields a negative effect on CO2 emissions. Furthermore, economic growth, urbanization, trade and foreign investment stir CO2 emissions meanwhile, information and communication technology such as mobile phone subscriptions and internet penetration have the opposite effect. Policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates how openness influences information and communication technology (ICT) penetration for improved government quality in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2000–2012. Openness is measured in terms of trade and financial globalization whereas ICT is proxied with mobile phone and internet penetration rates. Ten bundled and unbundled governance indicators are used. The empirical evidence is based on Generalised Method of Moments with forward orthogonal deviations. The main findings are First, financial openness has an edge over trade openness when combined with ICT to affect both economic and institutional governance. Second, mobile phones have an edge over internet penetration in complementing (i) trade openness for economic governance and (ii) financial openness for institutional governance. Third, net effects on political governance are consistently negative. Taken together, in the short-run, openness-driven ICT policies are more rewarding in terms of economic and institutional governance than political governance. Fourth, catch-up in governance is facilitated by the interaction between openness and ICT. Contributions of these findings to literature are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by a recent World Bank report on achieving of Millennium Development Goals which shows that poverty has been declining in all regions of the world with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), this study puts some empirical structure to theoretical and qualitative studies on the reconciliation of the Beijing model with the Washington Consensus. It tests the hypothesis that compared to middle-income countries, low-income countries would achieve more inclusive development by focusing on economic governance as opposed to political governance. The empirical evidence is based on interactive and noninteractive fixed effects regressions and 49 countries in SSA for the period 2000-2012. The findings confirm the investigated hypothesis. As the main policy implication, in order to address inclusive development challenges in the post-2015 development agenda in SSA, it would benefit low-income countries in the subregion to prioritize economic governance. Other theoretical and practical contributions are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assesses the comparative economics of governance in fighting terrorism in fifty-three African countries for period 1996-2012. Four terrorism variables are used: domestic, transnational, unclear, and total terrorism dynamics. Nine bundled and unbundled governance variables are employed: political stability (no violence), voice and accountability, political governance, government effectiveness, regulation quality, economic governance, corruption control, the rule of law, and institutional governance. The empirical evidence is based on fixed effects regressions. In the analytical procedure, we first bundle governance indicators by means of principal component analysis before engaging the empirical exercise with the full sample. In the final step, specifications are based on a decomposed full sample in order to articulate the fundamental characteristics for comparative purposes. The following broad findings are established. First, good governance is an appealing tool in fighting terrorism. Second, the relevance of the good governance dynamics is as follows in order of increasing relevance: economic governance, institutional governance, and political governance. The findings are presented in increasing order of magnitude to emphasize fundamental features in which governance dynamics have the highest effect in mitigating terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]