ABSTRACT Fiscal decentralisation has gain prominence over the last three decades. Proponents of fiscal decentralisation believe that, devolving government tax and expenditure responsibilities to lower tiers of governments will lead to the efficiency of governments and ultimately enhance economic growth. On the other hand, those who oppose fiscal decentralisation argue that fiscal decentralisation will result in ruins and wrecks. However, it is disappointing to note that upon all the controver...
ABSTRACT Ghana experienced its worst cholera outbreak in the last three decades in 2014. However, evidence of the economic costs of the disease on the health system and affected households has not been fully documented. This study therefore sought to determine economic cost associated with recent outbreak the disease. Two districts which were high and low incidence areas (HIA and LIA) were selected for comparative cost studies. A total of 418 (282 HIA and 136 LIA) households which experience...
ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of trade facilitation measures on bilateral trade involving Sub-Saharan Africa. It uses country-specific data on logistic performance measures for 189 countries including 47 from SSA over a 9-year period from 2007 - 2015. Leveraging a logistics performance augmented gravity model, the findings show trade enhancing effects on all the six trade facilitation measures with customs efficiency, trade and transport-related infrastructure and competence and q...
ABSTRACT The study focused on the challenges of municipal finance in TMA. The study analysed the sources of revenue, assessed the extent to which revenue generated are able to meet expenditure requirements, examined the constraints of revenue mobilisation and evaluated the management of financial resources in TMA. Purposive sampling was used to select two officers who had in-depth knowledge on the subject matter whilst simple random sampling was employed to select one hundred and one revenue...
ABSTRACT Most economies in Sub–Saharan Africa (SSA) have been lagging behind in development due to low growth performance over the years. The destinations of SSA exports have largely remained the same, with Europe commanding the ‘lions’ share of total exports while intra-regional trade remains very low over the years. However, the assessment of the effect of export destinations (intra and inter-SSA exports) on economic growth has not received any significant attention in Sub–Saharan ...
ABSTRACT Though Ghana has succeeded in halving poverty prior to the commencement of the new global agenda – Sustainable Development Goals, the country still faces high maternal and child mortality rates partly due to disparities in household wealth among other contextual factors. This study investigates the effect of household wealth on selected indicators of maternal and child health– antenatal care (ANC), modern contraceptive use and under-five mortality. In 2016, the WHO recommended a...
ABSTRACT The trade sector is generally considered as one that can set the stage for the development of an economy, as evidenced by the immense economic developments attained by Japan and China as a result of their good performance in the trade sectors. Ghana had hopes of achieving such success in the trade sector owing to the abundance of natural resources in the country but within 25 years of independence, the economy had cave in as a result of poor economic performance in the trade sector....
ABSTRACT Differences in economic outcomes and the analysis of their determinants are of utmost importance in various domains. Especially with respect to gender, there is massive (political) interest in whether these differences reflect discrimination or whether they simply arise from differences in relevant observable characteristics between men and women. This study focuses on estimating wealth differences between men and women in Ghana to comprehend and appreciate these differences and unde...
ABSTRACT Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been identified as the region least likely to achieve the MDGs. Of all the MDGs, those related to health seem far out of reach of the region even though SSA countries have been making efforts to achieve them. The unmatched nature of the efforts and outcomes has attracted several concerns in the literature. One variable that is very crucial to the advancement of the region towards the health-related MDGs is health expenditure. Though there are several stud...
ABSTRACT The expected harmony in terms of forward and backward linkages between education, skills and labour market outcomes has been met with frictions and imperfections that raises questions about the market relevance of acquired education and skills relative to industry requirements. The phenomenon of skills mismatch thus remains crucial for developing economies like Ghana considering colossal investment in education and skill development. This study, therefore, attempts to provide a compr...
ABSTRACT This study examines the dynamics of interest rate pass-through in Ghana since Bank of Ghana opted for inflation targeting monetary policy framework in accordance with the legislative instrument governing the institution. Time series data (policy rate, lending rate, deposit rate, interbank rate and Treasury bill rate) sourced from Bank of Ghana were analyzed using an error correction model. Per the estimation results, policy rate has an incomplete influence on wholesale market rates a...
ABSTRACT Children spending excessive time on market and domestic chores is common and pervasive in developing countries. This time input contributes to household’s current consumption which is beneficial to improving the current standard of living in the households. However with the tendency of affecting children’s welfare. There has been a lot of research on time use of children with more focus on children’s time on market activities whiles less attention is given to the hours childre...
ABSTRACT Despite the numerous studies on technical efficiency in the Ghanaian health sector, none has included regional hospitals, which are secondary referral hospitals. Researching the efficiency of this group of hospitals is important given their critical role and the fact that they employ substantial amounts of public resources. This thesis provides evidence on the relative technical efficiency of all regional hospitals, plus some selected large district/municipal/metropolitan hospital...
ABSTRACT The dilemma concerning the choice between austerity and stimulus packages has reignited the finance-growth debate. This study joins the debate to examine the linkages between financial deepening, trade openness and economic growth in selected West African countries. The study looks at the two monetary zones in West Africa, namely the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) and West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). Using a panel data of twelve (12) countries covering 1992—2009...
ABSTRACT Within the context of corporate reporting and disclosure, information on risk has become important because of the complexity of modern businesses and these complexities have exposed firms to a lot of risks. Aside calls for the study of risk management disclosure in different cultural context, the effects of risk management on the profitability of banks still remain an issue. Content analysis was employed to examine the annual reports of listed banks from 2012 to 2016. Fixed and rando...