While several studies evaluate the impacts of the novel coronavirus pandemic on different markets, it is worth the while to also examine its contagion (fractal) effect on the top (based on their market capitalization) twenty cryptocurrency markets. These cryptocurrency markets’ information (return and volatility) were sampled for both the ex-ante and ex-post coronavirus outbreak periods for this event study analysis. The detrended cross-correlation approaches are employed for both the main and robustness analyses. The results are robust and confirm a significant fractal contagion effect of the pandemic on the cryptocurrency space through their return and volatility. The contagion effect is relatively stronger for the crypto markets’ volatilities compared to the returns, nonetheless. Hence, this study supports the contagious effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the cryptocurrency markets and its policy implications for investors in the crypto space.

Read More

With the global sustainable development goals, it has become imperative for developing countries, especially sub-Saharan African countries, to think inward on ways to increase domestically mobilized revenue. The recovery of the global economy within the last few years has increased foreign assistance inflow into African countries. However, the direction of its impact on domestic mobilized revenue is unclear. This study revisited the relationship between foreign aid and domestic mobilized revenues for 32 sub-Saharan African countries using a more recent and novel dataset on tax revenue.

Read More

This study examined the impact of exchange rate volatility on manufacturing output in the ECOWAS, using time series data spanning from 1970 to 2019. The study employed panel data analysis to examine the relationship between exchange rate volatility and manufacturing output among all the ECOWAS countries. GARCH was used to establish the existence of volatility; Dumitrescu & Hurlin Granger non-causality test for causality direction between manufacturing and exchange rate, while Panel fixed, and random effect model was used to assess the magnitude of the effects of exchange rate volatility on manufacturing output in ECOWAS. The result of the volatility test from GARCH confirmed the presence of volatility in Exchange rates across all the countries in ECOWAS. Furthermore, the random effect model results showed that exchange rate volatility has a positive and significant impact on manufacturing output in ECOWAS. Based on the findings of this study, it is therefore recommended that exchange rate policies such as floating exchange rates and exchange rate sterilized intervention that will pave the way for competitiveness should be formulated by monetary authorities in ECOWAS.

Read more

Poverty reduction has beena crucial issue at the centre of global policy development in recent years. Hence, the urgent drive to eradicate extreme poverty has drawn upon different approaches to poverty reduction(Ogun, 2010). One of which is the reduction of poverty through economic growth. The role of economic growth as a means to reduce poverty is one subject that has attracted a great deal of debate in the development sector. Persistent efforts to reduce the rate of poverty through economic growth and development, especially in developing countries, have not been effective in producing the desired result. This situation has raised many concerns and questions about the efficacy of economic growth in reducing poverty (Roemer and Gugerty, 1997). Several economists and scholars have given various assumptions and opinions on the subject matter. Many economists believe that economic growth benefits all citizens of a country by enhancing and improving living standards. Hence, growth is essential for poverty reduction (Dollar et al., 2013). Other critics believe that, instead of being an incentive for poverty reduction, economic growth has resulted in worse socio-economic outcomes that increase poverty (Stephen and Simoen, 2013). Still, others maintain that economic growth has no direct impact or contribution to reducing poverty (Aigbokhan, 2000; Sahn and Younger, 2003).However, it is necessary to point out that these scholars and economists have reached their conclusions based on the theoretical and empirical studies conducted in countries with varied economic structures. As such, the result of findings may be peculiar to specific countries, regions, and continents. It is, therefore, essential to note that the prevailing economic situation in a country determines to a large extent, the effect and impact economic growth will have on poverty reduction in that country (Ebunoluwa and Yusuf, 2018). While some countries like South Korea, Malaysia, and Hong Kong have experienced a significant decrease in poverty as a result of rapid economic growth (Mulok et al., 2012), countries like Nigeria still battle with high rates of poverty despite significant economic growth.Poverty is one of the main challenges facing the world today. It refers to an individual’s inability to afford basic needs or attain a minimum standard of living (Oyekale, 2011). Most recent statistics on world poverty by the World Bank show that about 734million individuals live below the poverty line of $1.90 per day (World Bank, 2020). The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) also reports that nearly 1.3billion individuals are multidimensionally poor with deprivations in health, education, standards of living, and economic opportunities (UNDP, 2018).

Read more

Drawing from a robust identification strategy and household panel data collected before and after households were exposed to the Boko Haram conflict, this paper addresses the question of whether resilience capacity is an important factor in mitigating household risks of food insecurity due to conflict shocks. Using the non-parametric difference-in-differences framework, the paper identifies that the shocks negatively affect food security, but resilience capacity attenuates the effects. While resilience actively protects households from the adverse stressors, the paper observes that the pillars of resilience were also significantly decimated by the conflict, thereby weakening households’ long-run capacity to withstand future shocks. The results are prescriptively unchanged after adjusting the operating spatial distance of exposure or switching the measure of conflict exposure to conflict intensity represented as battle fatalities. These estimates align well with the various hypotheses of the resilience approach to sustainable development. It is, therefore, recommended that conflict intervention programs incorporate rebuilding resilience, which might help restore households’ ability to overcome future shocks.

Read More