Suchergebnisse

Reducing corruption has been one major challenge facing government and policy makers in Nigeria. This study employs the ARDL, CCR and FMOLS methods to assess the determinants of corruption in Nigeria over the period 1984–2016. The result of the cointegration test indicates that corruption and its determinants (economic development, political rights, military expenditure, rents, civil liberties and openness) have a long-run relationship. The results of the ARDL, CCR and FMOLS estimation demonstrate that economic development, political rights, military expenditure, rents, civil liberties and openness, are the main determinants of corruption in the long-run. Higher-economic development, greater civil liberties, more openness and higher military expenditure are related to lower corruption, but higher rents and political rights are associated with higher corruption. Based on these outcomes, this study recommends policies to promote economic development, civil liberties, political rights and openness, including reducing the reliance on the oil sector to curb corruption in Nigeria.

Despite the large body of research on foreign direct investment, domestic savings, domestic investment and economic growth, little has been done to investigate the relationships among them. This paper examines the relationships among foreign direct investment, domestic savings, domestic investment, and economic growth in 16 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 1981 to 2011, using various techniques. The results of VAR estimation and Granger causality tests demonstrate that there is a unidirectional causality from foreign investment to growth and domestic investment, savings to growth, and a bidirectional causality between growth and domestic investment as well as savings and domestic investment. The results of the variance decomposition analysis reveal that foreign investment exerts more influence on growth. Savings are more important in explaining domestic investment, growth is more important in explaining foreign investment, and domestic investment is more important in explaining savings. Based on the results of the impulse response analysis, there is a positive unidirectional causality from foreign investment to growth and domestic investment, savings to growth, and a positive bidirectional causality between savings and domestic investment, both in the short and long-run. Although there is feedback causality between domestic investment and growth, the impact from investment is negative in the short-run and positive in the long-run. Thus, policies that encourage foreign investment and savings are required to boost domestic investment and promote growth, and policies that raise domestic investment will lead to higher savings and growth in SSA.

This study investigates the effect of pensions on savings in Nigeria using quarterly data over the 2004-2015 period. Employing the ARDL bounds testing technique, the empirical evidence reveal that there is cointegration between pensions and savings, along with internal conflicts, unemployment, real interest rate and income level. The results indicate that pensions has a negative and significant effect on savings in the short-run, while its effect on savings is positive and significant in the long-run. These findings suggest that the availability of pensions will displace savings in the short-run, while it provides an avenue for individuals to increase their retirement income in the long-run, leading to higher national savings. In addition, internal conflicts and unemployment have a negative and significant effect on savings in the short-run and the long-run. Based on these findings, this study recommends policies to promote pension contributions, including reducing internal conflicts and unemployment to raise savings in Nigeria in the long-run.

This study employs the bootstrap autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach alongside the dynamic ARDL simulations technique to investigate the non-linear effect of public debt on public expenditure in Nigeria during the 1981–2020 period. The result of the bootstrap bounds test illustrates the presence of a long-term relationship between public expenditure and public debt (along with oil rents, output growth and urbanisation). Further, the estimation results indicate that the effect of public debt on public expenditure is non-linear. In particular, public expenditure increases at early stages of rising public debt but declines at latter phases when public debt grows beyond specific threshold. This empirical outcome is further validated by the dynamic ARDL simulations approach which shows a significant decline in predicted public expenditure after short-term expansion due to counterfactual shock in public debt. Thus, policies which diversify public revenue from oil production and a reversal of the rising trend in public debt are recommended to avert the adverse welfare implications of declining public expenditure.

Despite the abundant research on economic development, corruption and political instability, little research has attempted to examine whether there is a causal relationship among them. This paper examines the causal relationship among corruption, political instability and economic development in the ECOWAS using the Granger causality test within a multivariate cointegration and error-correction framework for the 1996 - 2012 period. The findings indicate that political instability Granger-causes economic development in the short term, while political instability and economic development Granger-cause corruption in the long term. In addition, we employed the forecast error variance decomposition and impulse response function analyses to investigate the dynamic interaction between the variables. The results demonstrate positive unidirectional Granger causality from political instability to economic development in the short term and positive unidirectional Granger causality from political instability and economic development to corruption in the long term in ECOWAS countries. Thus, ECOWAS governments should employ policies to promote political stability in the region.

This paper employs PCSE, OLS and TSLS with random effects to investigate the impact of the political instabilityincome interaction on savings in ECOWAS countries during the period 1996-2012.The empirical evidence illustrates that higher political stability is associated with higher savings and income levels moderate the adverse effect of political instability on savings, indicating that the impact of political instability on savings is higher in low income ECOWAS countries, but lesser at higher levels of income. The paper recommends the promotion of political stability via increases in incomes to raise savings in the ECOWAS region.