Search

The human capital crisis, reflected in the weak global competitiveness of African education, has questioned the effectiveness of public spending in increasing educational outcomes on the continent. Thus, this article examines the impact of government education expenditure on educational outcomes in 31 sub‐Saharan African (SSA) countries from 2000 to 2019 based on a generalized method of moments (GMM). The study sheds light on the priorities of government education spending on the continent. Findings showed that the effect of government education spending on educational outcomes in SSA was driven by the measure of educational outcome used. Government spending in Africa had focused mainly on primary and secondary education to the detriment of tertiary education because it is convenient and generates political gains. Due to institutional rigidities that emanate from the governance structure, the inequitable allocation of government funding had made higher education in Africa less responsive to the changes in global knowledge and labour market demands. Therefore, the following policy agenda becomes imperative in SSA: (i) government education spending should equitably target all education levels to improve the aggregate human capital development indicators in the region; (ii) there is a need to enhance government institutions' capacity to increase their level of effectiveness and performance.

This study uses a gravity framework to investigate the effects of natural disasters and trade openness on bilateral tourism flows. This includes investigating the influence of income levels across ...

This study investigates the stability of money in the proposed East African Monetary Union (EAMU). The study uses annual data for the period 1981 to 2015 from five countries making up the East African Community (EAC). A standard money demand function is designed and estimated using a bounds testing approach to co-integration and error-correction modeling. The findings show divergence across countries. This divergence is articulated in terms of differences in CUSUM (cumulative sum) and CUSUMSQ (CUSUM squared) tests, short run and long term determinants and error correction in event of a shock. Specifically, the results show that the demand for money is stable in the cases of Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania based on the CUSUM and CUSUMSQ tests, while for the remaining countries (Kenya and Uganda) only partial stability is apparent. In event of a shock, Kenya will restore its long run equilibrium fastest, followed by Tanzania and Burundi.

With the global sustainable development goals, it has become imperative for developing countries, especially sub-Saharan African countries, to think inward on ways to increase domestically mobilized revenue. The recovery of the global economy within the last few years has increased foreign assistance inflow into African countries. However, the direction of its impact on domestic mobilized revenue is unclear. This study revisited the relationship between foreign aid and domestic mobilized revenues for 32 sub-Saharan African countries using a more recent and novel dataset on tax revenue. We employed instrumental fixed effect Quantile regression, a novel technique in aid and tax revenue literature. The study's findings show that the impact of foreign aid varies across tax revenue distribution. We found a negative and significant effect in countries with high tax effort. While the effect is insignificant in countries with low tax effort, sub-Saharan African countries, especially those with low tax revenue, need to use foreign aid to strengthen their tax administration and adopt modern tax revenue collection technologies. As a result, sub-Saharan African countries should request advanced countries or donors to provide technical support in tax revenue mobilization.

A stable money demand function is essential when using monetary aggregate as a monetary policy. Thus, there is need to examine the stability of the money demand function in Nigeria after the deregulation of the financial sector. To achieve this, the study employed CUSUM (cumulative sum) and CUSUMSQ (CUSUM of square) tests after using autoregressive distributive lag bounds test to determine the existence of a long run relationship between monetary aggregates and their determinants. Results of the study show that a long-run relationship holds and that the demand for money is stable in Nigeria. In addition, the inflation rate is found to be a better proxy for an opportunity variable when compared to interest rate. The main implication of the study is that interest rate is ineffective as a monetary policy instrument in Nigeria.

Africa has the largest number and proportion of fragile states in the world. Fragile states are characterized by slower economic growth, higher incidences of poverty, and persistent inequality. Thus, there is a circular relationship between fragility, inequality, and slow economic growth. This study examines the relationship between fragility, financial inequalities, and inclusive growth in African countries. We introduce a novel way of examining inclusive growth in African countries by developing a unified measure of inclusive growth that captures the two dimensions of inclusive growth: income growth and income distribution. This enables us to adequately assess not just increased opportunities arising from economic growth, but also see how those new opportunities are distributed across all segments of the population. We captured the fragile status of African countries by using an index of fragility. We measured financial inequalities using new data on financial inclusion. The data analysis suggested negative relationships between fragility and inclusive growth in African countries. In addition, the results suggest positive relationships between financial inclusion and inclusive growth. Thus, inclusive growth can be fostered through policies that reduce financial inequalities. Therefore, a less fragile environment is conducive to inclusive growth both directly and indirectly through financial inclusion.

Nigeria adopted the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986 after the crash in world oil price in the early 1980s. Financial reforms are part of the reforms implemented during the SAP. Since industrialisation is seen as an engine of growth, we conduct an empirical assessment of the effects of financial sector reforms on industrialisation in Nigeria using an annual time series data over 1981–2015. Using an autoregressive distributed lag model, our findings show that financial reforms have a positive and significant impact on industrialisation.

This chapter explores the impacts of natural disasters on international tourist flows. This includes investigating whether geography plays a moderating role in the relationship. The analysis is carried out using gravity panel data over the period of 1995–2007. The panel data model was used for the analysis. The results suggest that the weighted population affected by storms or volcanoes dampens tourist flows, whereas its impact on the weighted population affected by floods or drought is positive. Furthermore, the effects of natural disasters are time and region dependent. For instance, the lagged weighted population affected by floods depresses tourist flows in Europe compared with other regions. This suggests that the effects of natural disasters depend on the severity of the impacts as captured by the weighted population affected. Policies aimed at eliminating or reducing the number of weighted population affected by natural disasters, such as effective prediction and warning can help to boost tourist flows.

To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), precisely the one of eradicating extreme poverty at the end of 2030, it is important to understand factors that can reduce poverty. This article examines the effects of tourism development on poverty in Sub-Saharan African countries. Because of the possibility of an endogeneity problem arising from a reverse causation that might exist between poverty and the explanatory variables, the system Generalized Method of Moments (system GMM) estimation technique was deployed. The findings showed that tourism development contributes to poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. In other words, the results obtained provided ample support for the workability of a pro-poor tourism policy agenda. As a result, policies that are targeted at increasing the attractiveness and awareness of the existing SSA tourism sites in order to increase international tourism receipts and arrivals should be promoted since such interventions have considerable poverty reduction potential.

In recent times, there has been increase in climate change protest across the globe. However, whether decrease in emissions is connected with climate change protest or not is yet to be documented in the literature. Consequently, the aim of this article is to fill this gap by examining ex-post detection of how climate change protests and its interconnectedness with CO2 emissions. Using the Bai and Perron (1998) structural break test, we estimate the number of breaks as well as the date of such structural breaks in CO2 emissions series for 41 countries. Our aim is to match the date of the climate change protests to those of the structural breaks. We observe that climate change protests are fairly consistent with the dates of breaks in Europe and Asia, but not in BRICS economies or US, Canada and other countries. Therefore, this method allows us to solve a gap in the energy industry related to the modelling and correct allocation of positive shocks in CO2 emissions to climate change protests.

In recent times, there has been increase in climate change protest across the globe. However, whether decrease in emissions is connected with climate change protest or not is yet to be documented in the literature. Consequently, the aim of this study is to fill this gap by examining ex-post detection of how climate change protests and its interconnectedness with CO2 emissions. Using the Bai and Perron (1998) structural break test, we estimate the number of breaks as well as the date of such structural breaks in CO2 emissions series for 41 countries. Our aim is to match the date of the climate change protests to those of the structural breaks. We observe that climate change protests are fairly consistent with the dates of breaks in Europe and Asia, but not in BRICS economies or US, Canada and other countries. Therefore, this method allows us to solve a gap in the energy industry related to the modelling and correct allocation of positive shocks in CO2 emissions to climate change protests.

This article investigated the tourism–terrorism nexus in Nigeria using quarterly time series data within a vector autoregression analytical framework. Unlike extant studies, we gauge the influence of terrorism shocks on the tourism sector specifically on the one hand and broadly the response of some key macroeconomic variables on the other hand. Several interesting results ensued. To sum up these findings, we found a negative response of tourism revenues to terrorist incidents over the long haul as well as adverse effects on other key macroeconomic variables. Therefore, government policies to revamp the ailing economy should be complemented with well-tailored counter-terrorism approaches for effectiveness.

This paper examined the relationship among tourism, terrorism and broad economic aggregates. We made use of the impulse response and variance decomposition of the Vector Autoregression (VAR) on the Nigerian economy from 1995Q1 to 2012Q4. Besides the appropriate unit root and cointegration properties of the variables, the result revealed, that terrorism had negative effects on other variables of the study, especially tourism. Also, shocks in other variables are majorly caused by terrorism. The study also revealed that tourism responds positively to FDI, but its response to GDP and FDI are mixed overtime. Therefore, growth-promoting and other complimentary policies that will engender aggregate welfare improvement need to be pursued to ensure that the tourism sector sidestep the adverse consequences of terrorism., tourismos, Vol. 12 No. 2 (2017)

The literature has been awash with alternative explanations for structural and economic transformation in more recent years. Growth drivers are myriad in empirical depictions and enquiries into deeper causal relationships has preoccupied development discourse. Particularly, the contributory role of tourism development in job creation, thereby increasing the standard of living, national output, foreign exchange earnings and revenue to the government through taxation have been brought into sharper view by extant studies. To this end, the developmental gains arising from expansion of activities in the tourism industry has equally blossomed. This is particularly the case in Africa owing on one hand to the high influx of tourists into the continent as well as the relative size of tourism receipts to gross domestic product (GDP) for key continental destinations on the other hand. Hence, the central question is how has tourism development influenced overall economic development in the African context? To pursue this train of inquisition, this study examined the effect of tourism development on human capital development in Africa. Precisely, the study uncovered the role of tourism in influencing human capital development using data on a panel of twenty-five (25) African countries covering the period from 1998 to 2014. System General Moment Method (GMM) estimation techniques was deployed in the study in a requisite bid to account for endogeneity and unlike previous work human capital is decomposed into education and health to facilitate clearer understanding on the specificity of the impacts of tourism development in the economy. The study findings showed that tourism development vis-à-vis tourist arrival and tourism receipt had positive and significant effect on human capital development in Africa. This result is found to be robust to the choice of human capital indicator albeit with certain variations contingent on model specification. Thus, appropriate policies that will make the continent's tourist sites attractive to tourists need to be implemented.