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The rural home is the center of extreme poverty in Africa. Thus, increasing access to finance is not only a prerequisite for enhancing economic transformation but provide opportunity for agricultural development and financial inclusion of the poor. Base on the identifies constrained to rural financing, this study recommends that improving financial literacy and creating access to financial resource is crucial for realising the potential of rural farmer in other to contribute effectively to economic development in Africa

Through their consumption behavior, households are responsible for more than 70% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, the GHG emission reduction potential due to the household behavior is very high. Energy consumption is the main source of the GHG emission in households. There are two main ways to reduce GHG emissions in households: use of renewable energy, energy efficiency improvement, and energy conservation due to changes in the energy use patterns. The highest energy saving potential in households is linked with building renovation, followed by the use of energy efficient appliances (including lighting). Renewable energy microgeneration technologies in households also provide opportunities for GHG emission reduction. Although there have been many policies developed to reduce GHG emissions from energy consumption in households, they still need to be more effective. This paper aims to assess willingness of Lithuanian households to reduce GHG emissions from energy consumption in households by embarking on energy renovation of buildings, use of energy efficient appliances and use of renewable energy technologies. The willingness to pay for these GHG emission reduction measures allows to compare household preferences with respect to available support measures and assess the adequacy of such measures. The paper also discusses household attitudes toward the main policies and measures for GHG emission reduction. The results show the highest willingness to pay for energy efficient appliances, followed by renewable energy technologies. The willingness to pay for energy renovation is the lowest one and such s measure requires significant state support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits the link between disaggregated Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows and sectorial growth using the panel dataset of 25 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries for the period 1990 to 2017. It adopted the panel fixed effect and Feasible Generalized Least Squares Approach in its analysis. The findings show that disaggregated FDI inflows have the potential to improve growth in the OECD area with adverse effects on domestic investment and inflationary pressure. Additionally, the results further indicate that disaggregated FDI inflows have a positive and significant relationship on the service and manufacturing sector but with no evidence shown on the agricultural industry. Thus, the study concludes that efficient reallocation of FDI resource(s) among sectors will not only boost output growth but also impact on the real economy. However, the necessary policy strategy to regulate this inflow is vital to mitigate its negative impact on domestic investment and inflation pressure.

This paper forecasts the world population using the Autoregressive Integration Moving Average (ARIMA) for estimation and projection for short-range and long-term population sizes of the world, regions and sub-regions. The study provides evidence that growth and population explosion will continue in Sub-Saharan Africa, tending the need to aggressively promote pragmatic programmes that will balance population growth and sustainable economic growth in the region. The study argued that early projections took for granted the positive and negative implications of population growth on the social structure and offset the natural process, which might have implication(s) on survival rate. Given the obvious imbalance in population growth across continents and regions of the world, a more purposeful inter-regional and economic co-operation that supports and enhances population balancing and economic expansion among nations is highly recommended. In this regard, the United Nations should compel member states to vigorously and effectively implement domestic and international support programmes with this objective in view.

The paper examined the effects of energy use on socioeconomic predictors in Africa. The Gary Becker hypothesis and the Michael Grossman demand for healthcare model were used to interact with energy related predictors on socioeconomic essentials. Our experimented model foretold the urgent need for government intervention programmes to resolve the energy misery in the African region.

The study investigates the effect of New Keynesian liquidity trap on fiscal stance in the United States, United Kingdom and Japan economies. We developed our DSGE model in the context of an optimal and persistent interactive fiscal policy, which allows us to track the transmission channel through which shocks are distributed among real economic variables. The evidence suggests that zero lower bound mitigates the ability of monetary policy to absorb the effect of exogenous shock on the macroeconomic variables while expansionary fiscal policy was able to absorb the shock persistence transmitted from the nominal interest rate.

A significant concern of sovereign wealth funds to monetary policy formation and implementation is the volatility in government revenue arising from sharing of the monetized oil proceeds which normally led to spikes in both exchange and short-term interest rates with disruption effects on the monetary transmission mechanism. To complicate the process, the excess liquidity sharing arising would lead to significant cost on the part of the central bank for liquidity mop up operation. This study reviews the aftermath of the current sovereign wealth funds in Nigeria and its potential of enhancing stability and policy coordination.

Prolonged deviation in the interest rate spread in the monetary transmission channel hasbecome the point of academic inquiry in recent years. The possibility that the current interest rate spread and poor liquidity management of the Central bank have combined to frustrate the financing role of majority of deposit money banks in Nigeria. This study analysed the extents to which varied interest rate monetary transmission complicate investment and inflationary targeting framework of the bank. The results shows that interest spread have severe implication on the stability role of the Central bank in Nigeria.

Over the last three decades, the renewed interest in key drivers of economic growth in OECD countries has been the central discourse. The argument is whether physical or human capital matters for the economic growth in these countries. This study contributes to the ongoing debate by exploring the connection between human capital accumulation and economic growth between 1986 and 2018 for a panel of 24 OECD countries. The empirical evidence is based on the fixed effect and two‐stage lease squares (2SLS). The result indicates that growth does not converge between countries. Further evidence shows that human capital, the savings rate, and the openness of trade play a vital role in OECD countries' economic growth. On the contrary, the findings show that life expectancy and inflation have adverse effects on growth. Thus, the study recommends the urgent need for intervention programs tailored toward improving research and development combined with investment in the well‐being of the people and the effective utilization of human capital to promote growth while mitigating inflationary pressure. HighlightsThe study flashlight on the link between human capital accumulation and economic growthIt highlights various issues surrounding the gaps in Solow model.The evidenced is based on Pooled OLS, G2SLS, and FE‐IV regression.Our results indicate that human capital accumulation (education and health) has a positive and significant relationship with economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored whether financial development and energy consumption affect environmental sustainability in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The empirical evidence used in this study was based on the standard fixed effects and the Arellano-Bover/Bundell Bond dynamic panel approach. Our empirical results demonstrated the importance of a financial development index and energy efficiency for reducing carbon emissions and promoting sustainability in the OECD. The mechanism through which financial development affects carbon emissions has been identified as energy consumption and foreign direct investment. Our study recommends that financial development be prioritised alongside investments in energy efficiency to promote environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the role of monetary policy in addressing climate change in the East African Community using a time series approach. The empirical evidence shows that monetary policy through the credit and interest rate channel can help smooth the transition to low-carbon economies, but at the cost of financial uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate on the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in environmental sustainability remains a puzzle in empirical research. It is unclear whether ICT can help mitigate the after-effects of carbon emissions and, in turn, alleviate the unavoidable consequences of climate change. In this study, we examined the role of ICT in environmental sustainability for a panel of 24 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. We used an annual dataset obtained from the World Bank covering 40 years (1980–2019). Our empirical strategy was based on the standard fixed effects panel and the Arellano-Bover/Blundell-Bond dynamic panel approach. Our empirical findings highlight the importance of using ICT to promote environmental sustainability. Additionally, we identified the mechanisms through which ICT can affect the environment, namely education, transportation, foreign direct investment, regulatory quality, and institutional quality. The present study has critical implications for combatting climate change. Policymakers should pay attention not only to ICT but also to other identified mechanisms that play complementary roles in promoting a sustainable environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study focuses on the effect of fiscal measures on private investment in selected African countries between 1980-2016. The study adopts Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (PARDL) Bounds testing approach developed by Pesaran, Shin and Smith (2001) in estimating the relevant relationship. The results of the long run estimates show that the interest on debt payment, government expenditure, expected inflation, exchange rate and government tax revenue, all have a positive relation with private investment among five selected African countries, suggesting that fiscal measures have crowd in effects on private investment in the long run. While, the results on the short run dynamics show that change in the previous one lagged periods of the variables have negative impacts on private investment, whereas the lagged two of the variables shows positive impacts on private investment in the short run, suggesting that there is a crowd out fiscal measures crowd out private investment in among the five selected African countries. The study recommends that the policy makers need to ensure fiscal discipline, if private investment must survive in African. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the effect of real economy predictors on domestic monetary policy reaction function in Nigeria over the period of 1983 and 2018, using a quarterly data obtained from the central bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin. The evidence is based on the Ordinary Least Square (OLS), Two stages Least Squares (2SLS) and Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) estimators. The findings suggest that inflationary focus is necessary condition, but not sufficient as the welfare implication must also be built into policy reactions. Thus, it recommends that policy discretion towards improving the wellbeing; reduce productivity shocks and ensuring greater policy coordination is urgently required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the impact of remittances on the real exchange rate in South-Africa using Cochrane-Orcutt Ordinary Least Square. The study finds out that remittances do not show any relationship with Rand in the foreign exchange market but certain factors like income, gross fixed capital formation and trade are significant to explain the dynamics in foreign exchange rate of South-African currency. The study suggests domestication of the excessive desire for western products, and provision of necessary incentives for local substitute companies to curb negative impact of trade on the foreign exchange rate. The study is constrained in so many ways, but one important area future research will like to investigate is how underground remittances operates to influence the dynamics in the real exchange rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]