Economics

This study develops a price dynamic version of the modified Mundell-Fleming macroeconomic model to test the hypothesis that in a public sector dominated economy like Nigeria, exports and government expenditures are the major determinants of aggregate output. The major assumption of the study is that petroleum produced in Nigeria can be sold locally or exported abroad, giving Nigeria the monopoly power in its exports, but is only a price-taker in terms of imports in the world market. The empirical model was estimated using two stage least-square estimation method. The results showed that exports and government expenditure are significant determinants of aggregate output. The results also show that increasing productivity growth in exports and government expenditures has positively impacted output growth. The present study marks an improvement over the earlier studies in that it has some unique dimensions. First, it establishes that the manufacturing base need not be fully developed for exports to have significant effects on output growth. Second, the analysis shows that the consumption demand is liquidity constrained. The practical implication of this study is that it offers policy makers the set of options and tools for accelerating economic growth through exports promotion and appropriate management of government expenditures.

The paper surveys the inflow of foreign direct investment into 10 African countries in the period 1970 to 2000. The countries were selected to reflect differences in size and economic development as well as to reflect all the regions of the continent. It was found that, on a per capita basis, there was a higher inflow of foreign direct investment into those countries that allow greater relative economic freedom and those that have a legal environment that protects property rights. It is suggested that in order to attract greater inflows of foreign direct investment in the future, African nations need to accelerate progress towards more open economies, greater economic freedom and a legal environment that guarantees property rights.

This paper investigates the racial differences in loan denial rates in three Mississippi counties within the Jackson Metropolitan statistical area (MSA). The study examines the role of location, minority population of location, and the ratio of loan amount to income on loan denial rates. The study uses Home Mortgage Disclosure Data (HMDA) from 2007 to 2013 to capture the effects of the recent financial crisis on loan denial rates. The results show that the ratio of loan amounts to income is a significant determinant in loan denial rates. Moreover, residents in Rankin County are more likely to be denied loans than residents in Hinds and Madison counties over the study period. Residents in high minority population area are more likely to be denied loans than residents in low minority population areas. The researchers employed both logistic regression and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analysis. The results showed that 28.89% of the difference in loan denial rates between whites and African Americans is explained by endowments, while 64.94% is unexplained. Similarly, 12.87% of the difference in loan denial rates between Hispanics and Whites is explained by endowments, while 86.91% is unexplained.

This paper examines the role of the COVID-19 pandemic on the loss of employment income on different ethnic groups in the USA using weekly Household Pulse Survey (HPS) data from the US Census Bureau from August 19 to November 9, 2020. This study is significant for two reasons. First, it documents the loss of employment income on various households in the USA during the COVID-19 pandemic period from March 13, 2020, to November 9, 2020. Second, it examines the effect on the different ethnic groups based on demographic and socioeconomic status of these households. We specifically examine the role of income, employment, education, location, access to technology, and health insurance among the different age groups, race/ethnicity, and gender. We employ multivariate logistic regression analysis for the study. The study also employs Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition analysis to investigate the source of disparities in loss of employment income on the different racial/ethnic groups. The multivariate regression examines the effects of income, employment, education, location, health insurance, access to technology, different age groups, race/ethnicity, and gender. This method enables us to estimate the level of differences in loss of employment income outcomes among the various race/ethnic groups based on their socioeconomic status. Our a priori expectation is that loss of employment income and household income, educational status, and employment will be positively correlated. However, we have no a priori expectation of the correlation with location, race/ ethnicity, and gender. Our results show that Hispanics, Blacks, Other, and Asians experienced a loss of employment income of 35.6%, 25.3%, 31.2%, and 6.2% higher than Whites, respectively. Equally important is that 45.9%, 40.3%, and 25.2% of the differences are unexplained or attributed to discrimination for Hispanics, Other, and Blacks, respectively.

We analyze infant and under-5 mortality trends in Nigeria using data from the demographic and health surveys (DHS) of 2003 and 2008. We use pooled data to enable us carry out logistic regression analysis at the state level and allow for robustness of our results. Our analysis shows wide disparities in both infant and under-5 mortality rates in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria and the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja. Furthermore, the results show highly significant differences in infant and under-5 mortality rates among the six geopolitical zones and among the 36 states of Nigeria. Our result shows that urban advantage over rural areas in under-5 mortality rate only exist among the richest quintiles in Nigeria. We find no evidence of statistically significant difference between the urban poorest and poorer quintiles and the rural poorest and poorer quintiles in both infant and under-5 mortality in Nigeria. We find wealth, educational attainment of the mother, t...

The objective of this study is to examine the zonal differences in the role wealth, education and religion play in child and infant mortality in Nigeria. This study utilized 2003 and 2008 DHS pooled data of Nigeria. Logistic regression analysis technique is used to examine the difference in odds of mortality between the different wealth quintiles within urban and rural areas. The study used logistic regression technique to enable us to obtain the odds ratio of which group has lower or higher odds of child mortality based on wealth quintile and on geographic location in the various zones of Nigeria. Our findings show that education and wealth are significant factors in explaining the urban-rural differences in infant and child mortality rates in Nigeria. We also find that the risk of both infant and child mortality is higher in the Northwest and Northeast zones of Nigeria than any other zones. Also, the southwest region has the lowest risk of both infant and child mortalities in Nige...

This study uses a panel data, to study the recent contribution of stock markets in economic growth in 6 selected countries of sub-Saharan Africa from 1991-2009. Over the last two decades, most of the countries in sub-Sahara Africa have either gone through one form of Market oriented reform of its economy or trade liberalization. However, these market oriented reforms are just beginning to yield dividends in some areas of the economy. These results show that private capital stock market development measured by market capitalization and stock turnover ratio, and foreign direct investment have positive significant correlations with growth in per capita output in the selected sub-Saharan African countries. These results point to the positive correlation between market liberalization, economic reforms and increase in stock market capitalization as well as the liquidity measured by stock traded turnover ratio. More importantly, the negative correlation between financial crisis and growth ...