Optimization of diamond price prediction strategies using machine learning techniques
August 2024
Accurate diamond price prediction is critical for stakeholders in the jewelry industry. This study presents a comprehensive approach to predicting diamond prices using various regression models. Based on the diamond dataset sourced from diamond market data, an exhaustive analysis was conducted, including data normalization, evaluation of multiple regression models, and optimization of the Random Forest model. The...
Okun's law using structural change with threshold approach: Empirical evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
May 2024
This paper employs the structural change with threshold approach to empirically verify Okun's law in the DRC. Utilizing quarterly data, the findings robustly support the existence of Okun's law in the DRC, albeit with a coefficient lower than that originally proposed by Okun. Moreover, the results reveal that the Okun coefficient in the DRC fluctuates significantly over time, irrespective of the economy's...
Environmental consequences of energy commodities and economic growth: Evidence from Nigeria
January 2024
This study explored the relationship between energy commodities, economic growth, and Nigeria's carbon dioxide (CO?) emissions spanning from 1981 to 2021. Employing the Vector Error Correction Mechanism (VECM) process, the study revealed a negative correlation between fossil fuel consumption, economic growth, and carbon dioxide emissions. Long-term elasticities indicate that carbon dioxide emissions would rise by 24...
Global economic policy uncertainty, oil shocks and volatility in some Southern African Development Community stock markets: A GARCH-MIDAS approach
November 2023
This study investigates the effects of global economic policy uncertainty and oil shocks on stock market volatility in Botswana, Mauritius, and South Africa. Datasets from periods preceding and during the COVID-19 pandemic are utilized to provide evidence on the impact of global economic policy uncertainty (GEPU) and oil shocks on stock returns volatility in these countries. The examination employs a mixed data sampling...
Determinants of urban poverty: The case of Goba Town, Bale Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia
September 2023
This study aims to assess the primary causes of urban poverty in Goba City, located in the Bale Zone of the Oromia Region in Ethiopia. Data were collected from a representative sample of 384 households selected from specific kebeles in the study area using a combination of multistage and systematic sampling methods. The analysis of the data employed both descriptive statistics and a logit regression model. The binary...
The determinants of public debt in the Gambia: Estimates using the autoregressive redistributed lag (ARDL) bound cointegration technique
May 2023
The main objective of this paper is to examine the key determinants of public debt in the Gambia. To achieve this objective, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARD) method was employed to examine the impact of short-run and long-run selected macroeconomic variables as well as a government effectiveness variable in determining the public debt level of The Gambia during the period 2000 to 2019. The results reveal that...
Capital, risk and efficiency tradeoffs in Cameroonian banking
May 2023
This paper analyzes the relationship between capital, risk and efficiency for a sample of 10 Cameroonian banks between 2014 and 2020. To reach the authors’ target, they specify a system of equations and estimate it using the two stage least squares panel data estimator technique. The empirical analysis shows that increases of bank capital do not reduce risk taking in Cameroonian commercial banks. Moreover, cost...
Do exchange rates influence US poultry exports?
May 2023
The United States is the world’s largest poultry producer and exports about 18% of its total poultry production. With the global demand for poultry products projected to rise further, understanding key factors in world trade is essential for better trade. We study the influence of key demand factors, that is, exchange rate, poultry price and income of importing country on US poultry products. We focused...
Analysis of the impact of renewable energy use on GDP and employment in Angola: An error correction model approach
February 2023
This paper explores the impact of renewable energy on Angola's GDP and employment. The study used the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and error correction models with data on renewable energy use, gross domestic product, unemployment rate, industry employment, vulnerable employment, labor force participation rate and gross fixed capital formation. This note contributes to the existing literature by...
Assessment of financial system and economic growth: An empirical evidence from Ghana’s stock market
February 2023
The importance of a country’s financial system to its economic well-being cannot be underestimated. This paper seeks to investigate whether causation exists between Ghana’s financial system and economic growth. Ghana’s financial system was measured using the efficiency, depth, and stability of the stock market, while economic growth was measured as the Gross Domestic Growth (GDP) per capita growth. The...
Cross-border trade and economic growth: An application to Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Morocco, and Nigeria
January 2023
The objective of this paper is two-fold. On one hand, it seeks to measure the direct effect of cross-border trade on the dynamism of the economies of countries such as Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Morocco and Nigeria from 1971 to 2020. On the other hand, it aims to verify the possibility of establishing a link between the volume of cross-border trade, the dynamics of certain variables (currency, population, income)...
Impact of bilateral and multilateral aid on domestic savings of Sub-Saharan African countries: Mediating role of institutional quality
December 2022
This study examined the impact of bilateral and multilateral aid on domestic savings of SSA countries, taking into account the role of institutional quality. A balanced panel data set consisting of 28 SSA countries from 1996 – 2015 was used. Random effects techniques were also used. Bilateral aid was found to have negative significant impact on domestic savings of SSA countries, reflecting a crowding-out effect;...
Financial risk and financial performance of deposit money banks in Nigeria
December 2022
The study examined the risk and stability of the Nigerian deposit money institutions. The study, which is a quasi-experimental one, examines how an independent variable that participants already had before the study's start influences a dependent variable, hence the ex post facto design was adopted. As of December 31, 2019, the population will consist of all Deposit Money Banks that have been listed on the Nigerian...
Assessment of monetary policy transmission mechanism in Tanzania
December 2022
This study aims to assess the effectiveness of alternative monetary policy transmission channels in Tanzania. Theoretically, monetary policy transmission is expected to differ between developed and developing countries due to varied structural and institutional features. The empirical work undertaken by this study suggests that the sensitivity of output and prices to changes in monetary policy are generally weak and...
The impact of import substitution policy on trade and exchange rate: An empirical analysis from Ghana
August 2022
This research examines the impact of import substitution policy on the trade balance and exchange rate in Ghana by employing the macroeconomic variables – inflation rate and interest rate. For a robustness check, the policy is analyzed using the augmented trade balance and magnitude of import substitution approaches. The study utilizes quarterly data from 1990Q1 to 2021Q1 and applies the Johansen cointegration...
The nexus between savings and investment in the East African Community: Co-integration and error correction models
July 2022
This study examines the effect of savings on investment in East African countries in the face of the recent reduction in trade barriers and other regional integration policies. The findings reveal that among all the regions in Africa, East Africa had the lowest household saving for the period 2000-2016 and only Burundi and Kenya savings and investment rates were co-integrated. The policy implication is that the domestic...
Analysis of multi-country manufacturing value-added (MVA) using a dynamic panel model
July 2022
Industrialization is required to increase an economy's competitiveness and living standards, as well as to catch up to more developed economies; while low and lower-middle-income countries' average performance over the last five decades has been disappointing at 6.7 and 17.4%, respectively. Fabrication exports account for 37.1% of total low-middle-income average exports and 9.6% of low income. As a result, this...
A systematic and non-systematic approach to monetary policy shocks and monetary transmission process in Nigeria
June 2022
The study explores the impacts of systematic and nonsystematic monetary policy shocks and how they affect the monetary transmission process in Nigeria from 1986 to 2020 using quarterly data. The objective of the study was to improve the understanding of the systematic and non-systematic monetary shocks and how they affect the monetary transmission process in Nigeria. Data on variables such as monetary policy rate,...
Further insights on monetary transmission mechanism in Nigeria
April 2022
This study investigated the response of the different monetary policy channels to several macroeconomic variables in Nigeria and established the dominant channel on output from the period of 1986 to 2017 using quarterly data. Variables such as private sector credit, inflation rate, monetary policy rate, exchange rate, all share index and real output were used to carry out this investigation. The study adopted the...
Panel VAR analysis of liberalization and financial development dynamics: Evidence from Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA)
February 2022
After decades of failed developmental efforts, many economies around the world employed the McKinnon-Shaw liberalization thesis to propel the development of their financial systems. Whiles some of these economies had success stories, others had frustrating outcomes. This study examines the financial liberalisation and financial development dynamics considering inflationary effects, in SSA spanning 2000 to 2019. We...
Regime Detection in Sub-Saharan Africa Equity Markets – A Hidden Markov Model Approach
November 2021
Complaints of heightened risks in the sub-Saharan African equities markets are rife in the practitioner literature. Investors need an understanding of the volatility dynamics in these frontier markets. This paper uses the Hidden Markov Models to detect the points of regime changes in the volatility in the markets of Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Botswana. The daily closing indices of the exchanges and modeled 2- and...
Impact of cocoa price shock on the bank profitability in Ghana
November 2021
Cocoa unrelentingly is a valuable crop and key foreign exchange earner in Ghana regarding other agricultural commodity exports. The focal drive of this study was to examine the impact of macroeconomic variables including cocoa price and bank specific characteristics on bank profitability during the period of 2010 to 2020. The study extends the analysis of cointegration, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) with that of...
Transparency/accountability and human capital development as software in Nigeria’s quest for economic development 2004 - 2020
October 2021
Nigeria is endowed with rich human and material resources yet continues to struggle in the quagmire of underdevelopment. This paper explored the place of human capital development and transparency/accountability in economic development. Correlation and regression analyses were used on the secondary data collected, tested for unit root and autocorrelation, over a period of 13 years. ...
Determinants of commercial banks’ performance in Malawi: An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach
October 2021
There has been a monotonic increase in research investigating the performance of commercial banks across the globe. This is a recognition that the banking industry has a significant contribution to the service sector and national output. This paper examined the existence of the structure-conduct performance (SCP) and efficient market hypotheses by employing an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach for a period...
Stock returns, inflation and interest rate In Nigeria
July 2021
The generalized Fisher effect has attracted a great deal of controversy around the world. This is similar in the Nigerian scenario as study established that there exist no long-run relationship between stock returns and inflation while some studies reported that only a unidirectional causation of returns on stocks with money flow exist as the variation in the flow of money will alter returns on stocks significantly, but...
The economic impact of unemployment and inflation on output growth in South Africa
July 2021
Unemployment is not only pertinacious to output growth, but it has other social costs. As economies seek to develop through elimination of inequalities, alleviating poverty and ensuring output growth, inflation and unemployment stand as scarecrows to investors. This research aims to evaluate the economic effects of unemployment and inflation on output growth in South Africa. An ARDL model was employed to estimate...
An econometric analysis: Is there an optimal external debt threshold for Guinea?
July 2021
This study aimed to determine the threshold level of public external debt-to-GDP ratio for Guinea and compared it with the current evolution of public debt. The authors used an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to test the hypothesis of long-term relationship among the variables of interest and the data used ranged from 1990 to 2018. The results revealed that External debt-to-GDP ratio and per capita GDP...
Impact of globalization on work ethics: A review of existing literature
July 2021
Globalization as a concept surpasses a mere openness to symbiotic economic relationship. Globalization refers to the level of openness and positive attitude towards the products, values and ideologies of other people and cultures. The study reviews existing literature on the impact of globalization on work ethics across the globe and tries to observe possible trends of convergence of work ethics among several countries....
Labor-intensive focused industrial policy in Ethiopia: Potentials, latecomer’s advantage and binding constraints
May 2021
This study deals with industrial policy, an issue that has been hotly debated in economic development. It argues that strategic and proactive industrial policy is a key to unlock the potential and wade through industrialization for low-income countries such as Ethiopia where market failures are pervasive. More specifically, it argues that industrial policy should be tailored to factors endowment structure. In the case...
Do disaggregated manufacturing sectors matter in Nigeria’s economic growth: VECM approach?
May 2021
The research used vector autoregressive (VAR) and the vector error correction mechanism (VECM) technique to see whether disaggregated manufacturing sectors had any effect on Nigeria's economic growth over the last 49 years (1970-2018). The productivity of the oil refining subsector is an effective tool for economic growth, according to empirical findings; the coefficient is positive and meaningful in the short run...
The effects of interest rate on economic growth: Further insights from the Gambia
May 2021
The main objective of this paper is to examine the effects of interest rate on economic growth in Gambia over the period 1993 to 2017. The Vector E rror Correction Model (VECM) is used to check the relationships between the dependent variable (Gross Domestic Product) and independent variables (Real Effective Exchange Rate and Real Interest Rate), both in the short-run and long-run. Post estimation tests, including...
Analysing the use of electronic payments in Trinidad and Tobago
January 2021
Trinidad and Tobago is a high-income oil producing Caribbean economy that has been transitioning from the sole reliance on cash for payment, but analysis on the use of electronic payment services remains mostly unanalysed. A slow adoption rate can be a result of voluntary or involuntary financial exclusion if individuals in society choose not to access financial services or are stymied from fully accessing services. The...
Socio-economic factors determining rural households’ access to credit and amount of loan utilization for proposed action: The case of Omo Micro Finance
January 2021
Credit is an important instrument used to improve the welfare of the poor. It could enable the rural households in overcoming liquidity problems, enhancing productive capacity and adopting new technologies. In Ethiopia, the government is promoting microcredit services, but the participation of rural households for credit service is limited. Inappropriate use of loan money also exacerbated the challenges in achieving the...
Institutional factors of inclusive growth: Evidence from Côte d’ivoire
January 2021
Economic growth is important but not sufficient to generate a sustainable increase in individual welfare. Inclusiveness attributes to growth, the dual virtue of widening the space of economic and social opportunities; while ensuring a better application of distributive equity. In this perspective, Ali and Son suggest that growth is inclusive when combined with high income and equity. This study tries to verify this...
Financial inclusion: Is it a precursor to agricultural commercialization amongst smallholder farmers in Uganda? A comparative analysis between Lango and Buganda sub-regions
January 2021
This study examines the contributions of financial inclusion in supporting agricultural commercialization amongst smallholder farmers in Uganda in Lango and Buganda sub-regions. The researcher adopted a comparative study and cross-sectional survey design where descriptive, bivariate and multivariate data analysis was used. Chi square procedure was run to test the hypothesis that financial inclusion does not affect...
Multidimensional measures of deprivation in Tunisia
January 2021
The multidimensional apprehension of poverty is largely accepted today given the considerable contribution to understanding and acting against the manifestations of this phenomenon. Amartya Sen’s capability approach is the basis of the recent developments on the subject. In this perspective, the present work aims to study the application of multidimensional deprivation measures on Tunisian data. This paper...
Capital structure, credit risk management and financial performance of microfinance institutions in Uganda
January 2021
The paper examines the relationship between capital structure, credit risk management and financial performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Uganda based on agency theory. The study adopted a cross–sectional research design to examine 64 MFIs in Uganda. Correlation and multiple regression analysis were performed to analyze the data. The results reveal that credit risk management significantly contributes...
Gender differences in urbanization willingness: Evidence from Henan, China
January 2021
In this work, Henan is taken as a typical study area to assess the level of gender differences of urbanization willingness in China; Henan population structure is a small representation of the whole country. Using data of Henan migrant workers' citizenization research in 2017, the evaluation index system of Henan migrant workers' urban integration degree was established based on the Maslow's demand theory....
Financial sector readiness to support economic activities under COVID-19: The case of African continent
October 2020
Organizational readiness for change is considered a critical precursor to the successful implementation of complex changes. Indeed, some suggest that failure to establish sufficient readiness accounts for one-half of all unsuccessful, large-scale organizational change efforts. The African economy and the world at large are at brink of economic depression as result of devastating effect of COVID-19. However, it is...
The board of directors and the financial performance of the Senegalese public service companies
October 2020
The Board of Directors (BoD) as an internal mechanism of corporate governance is considered to be a very important means of control. Indeed, according to several studies, its effectiveness depends on several factors relating to BoD size, the independence of its members, the presence of an audit committee, gender diversity and BoD meetings. To see the influence of independent variables on the dependent variable financial...
Stability of money demand function in emerging Countries: Static and dynamic panel approaches
October 2020
The purpose of this study is to investigate the stability of money demand function in emerging countries using the annual data over the period 1987 to 2018. The panel data was analyzed applying both static and dynamic panel models. With the static panel analysis, the random effect method is found to be an appropriate model to determine the factors that affect money demand in emerging countries. The findings of random...
Corporate governance and its effects on financial performance of banks evidence from selected private commercial banks in Ethiopia
October 2020
Corporate governance is not an abstract goal but exists to serve corporate purposes by providing a structure within which stockholders, directors, and management can pursue most effectively the objectives of the corporation and thereby it maximize the financial performance of the company for its shareholders. This paper investigates and examines the corporate governance and its effects on financial performance from the...
Public agencies in Nigeria’s oil sector: Wealth distribution, economic development and poverty alleviation in the Niger Delta
October 2020
Why are host communities where oil companies are operating in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria undeveloped despite huge contribution of petroleum resources to the economy? This question has led to debates among scholars on the role and operation of multinational oil companies in Nigeria. To address this question, detailed literature search was conducted including reviewing archival documents, company information and...
The effect of monetary policy and inflation on the exchange rate: A case study of Ghana
October 2020
The Ghanaian Cedi has recently experienced persistent depreciation against its major trading partners. This paper investigates the contribution of inflation and monetary policy in this persistent depreciation. The paper makes use of the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Bounds test of cointegration and the Toda and Yamamoto (1995) Augmented Granger Causality test to determine the long and short-run dynamics of...
The economic effects of Chinese foreign aid
October 2020
Nowadays there is a general skepticism, uncertainty, and misapprehension regarding China's foreign aid to developing countries, and very few studies have tried to answer the issue of whether China's foreign aid fails to foster economic growth in the recipient countries. Therefore, this study intend to examine the effects of Chinese foreign aid (disaggregated into Project Aid and Development Loan Aid) on gross...
Human capital and stock market performance of some selected emerging economies
October 2020
This article fills a gap of literature on the relationship between education and the stock market. We adopt the modified Calderon-Rossell model to estimate the effect of quality of human capital on Capital market. Four different techniques were used to check the robustness of the result. Of all the techniques adopted Newey-West to account for different characteristics of emerging economies turnout to be more efficient...
Assessment on the roles of information technology in improving the customer satisfaction and employee performance of commercial banks: The case of Dashen and United Bank Branches in Mizan-Aman, Southwestern Ethiopia
October 2020
The study was conducted with the major objective of assessing the impact of IT on the performance of commercial banks in Ethiopia. In order to accomplish its general objective, the study attempted to evaluate the effects of IT on customer satisfaction, employee performance as well as bank revenue. The three dimensions were used as crucial indicators of the impact of IT on overall bank performance. Two cross-sectional...
Okun’s law: An asymmetrical approach for Zimbabwe (1991-2018)
October 2020
The Okun’s law, which explains the inverse relationship between unemployment and output growth, has been observed to have broken down in most developing economies. The failure by researchers to take into account the asymmetric properties of the relationship between unemployment and output has been attributed to the limitations of the Okun’s law in explaining the inverse relationship between unemployment and...
Macroeconomic volatility of Turkey in comparison with South Africa and developed countries
October 2020
The purpose of this study is to investigate the business cycle volatility of Turkish economy using the quarterly data over the period 1961:Q1 to 2018:Q4 and to determine the smoothing parameter, λ, of HP filter for annual frequency of observations. The macroeconomic variables such as import, investment and export are more volatile followed by government spending; while consumption and real GDP are less volatile....
Stimulating farmer access to bank credit in Zimbabwe: The bankers’ perspective
July 2020
Access to finance by farmers is recognized as a tool for poverty eradication in developing countries, where the majority depends on agriculture for survival. This study sought to establish strategies for enhancing farmer access to bank credit as prescribed by the lenders themselves. A structured interview guide collected primary data from a sample of 12 registered commercial banks in Zimbabwe, which were analysed by...
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