This study investigates the role of institutional quality in the government expenditure-unemployment nexus in Nigeria using different components of government expenditures (total, recurrent, and capital expenditures). Causality tests and the autoregressive distributed lag estimation methods are used to analyse data spanning the period from 1984 to 2019. The key findings are as follows: (i) unidirectional causality runs from unemployment to total and capital expenditure and a partial unidirectional causality runs from recurrent expenditure to unemployment; (ii) total and capital expenditures are pro-employment in the long run, while the recurrent expenditure is only pro-employment in the short run; (iii) institutional quality is detrimental to employment in the long run; and (iv) institutional quality significantly moderates the impact of government expenditure on unemployment in Nigeria. The Nigerian government need to increase pro-employment expenditure and make concerted efforts at improving the institutional quality in Nigeria.

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Authors: Isiaka Akande Raifu, Alarudeen Aminu, Joshua Adeyemi Afolabi, Emmanuel Olubowale Obijole

With the widening saving-investment gap and the limited domestic financial resources to drive development imperatives in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), foreign direct investment (FDI) is considered a viable and sustainably promising option for boosting employment generation and closing gender gaps in employment. This paper provides critical insights into the gender and age-based employment effect of FDI in SSA and the role of institutional quality in shaping the relationship. The two-step generalized method of moments modelling framework was adopted to analyse relevant data of 29 SSA countries over the 2000-2021 period. The results revealed that FDI has a significant employment-enhancing effect irrespective of gender and age considerations. We also find that institutional quality amplifies this effect. Efforts should, therefore, be concentrated on improving institutional quality, the success of which will appeal to foreign investors and attract more foreign investments.

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Authors: Joshua Adeyemi Afolabi and Isiaka Akande Raifu
 

This study examines whether structural breaks matter in the tourism-growth nexus. We estimated annual and quarterly data for the world’s top 10 tourism destinations between 1995 and 2020 using the structural break, Fixed Effects and Feasible Generalised Least Square (FGLS) approaches. This study provides evidence of structural fractures in the relationship between tourism (in the lead) and economic growth.

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Authors: Isiaka Akande Raifu, Joshua Adeyemi Afolabi

Green hydrogen is a promising alternative towards the global target of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. As such, attention is geared towards green energy hydrogen technologies and markets. Invariably, this also provides investment opportunities for both institutional and private investors. To this end, seventeen green hydrogen markets are studied using network modelling techniques. Among other key findings, Plug Power leads the industry’s returns while Bloom Energy leads its volatilities as net transmitters. Intuitively, these markets serve as signals or yardsticks in identifying performances, developments, investment opportunities and prospects in the green hydrogen industry. Conversely, Fuel Cell Energy and Nikola are the leading net return and volatility receivers respectively. Nonetheless, the outbreak of the coronavirus altered the nature of connectedness existing in the renewable green hydrogen industry. This is further confrmed using the Welch (two samples) test. Besides, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic strengthened and improved the industry’s overall connectedness. Generally, vital evidence for understanding the green hydrogen industry is presented and discussed. Evidence-based Investment and portfolio management policy implications and recommendations are made.

Time-of-use pricing in retail electricity markets implies that wholesale market scarcity becomes easily communicated to end consumers. Yet, it is not well-understood if and how the price formation process in retail electricity markets will help to reward the demand for operational flexibility due to growth in intermittent generation. To contribute to this discussion, this paper develops a partial equilibrium model of the retail electricity market calibrated to Chinese data. The paper finds that tariffs in this market may not be significantly suppressed by growth in near-zero costs renewable sources when controlling for flexibility restrictions on thermal generation assets and when a significant curtailment of variable renewable resources exists in the market. In addition, it shows that the price formation process in retail electricity markets which controls for flexibility restrictions on thermal generation while allowing for consumers to respond slowly to price changes is a feasible strategy to reward the demand for operational flexibility. Finally, the paper reveals that while integrating intermittent generation beyond levels which the available storage capacities can accommodate may result in losses to producers, benefits to consumers may offset these losses, leading to overall welfare gains.