ABSTRACT This study adopts a legal definition of informal sector work and studies the determinants of informality, paying particular attention to the gender dynamics with respect to informality and poverty. The study throws more light on the definition and measures of informality, then proceeds to determine the socio-economic factors that influence an individual’s decision to work in the informal sector. Particular attention is given to the relationship between informal sector work and pove...
1.0 Background to the Study In spite of the high level of globalization, international trade, financial liberalization as well as the increasing economic integration of the world as a whole, there is still a wide range of currencies circulating in the world’s economic monetary system. The International Monetary Fund with 188 member countries has more than 150 currencies. As Mundell (1961) writes: “If some spaceship captain came down from outer space and looked at the way international mon...
ABSTRACT This paper investigates household cooking fuel choice and its impact on household healthcare expenditure as well as examining the socio-economic and demographic factors that influence household healthcare expenditure in Ghana. We employed the Tobit regression technique and data from the sixth and seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey conducted in 2012/13 and 2016/17 respectively. Our findings reveal that relative to households using wood, households using charcoal and ga...
ABSTRACT While many studies have tested the theoretical essence of education or income on maternal mortality, none has studied these relationships in the long term. Researchers have paid very little attention to assessing the impact of income or education on maternal mortality in SubSaharan African countries with different income statuses. Using panel data on forty-three SubSaharan African countries over the period 1980 to 2010, along with the modernization theory, the study unravels the pote...
ABSTRACT It is prudent for a government to budget approximately for its expenditure based on expected or an accurately forecasted revenue. This will reduce the recurring budget deficit of the economy and bring the fiscal profile of an economy as Ghana to an acceptable level. There seem to be no clear guidelines from literature as to which econometric method provides the most accurate fiscal variables forecasts, but rather each forecasting case is considered and evaluated separately for indivi...
Abstract This study examines the insurance services sub-sectors impact on output performance in Nigeria from the period 1981-2017. Using service exports and imports as proxy for insurance services. Methodically, this study test for stationary, test for the cointegration using the EngleGranger single-equation and use the Generalized Linear Model (GLM) method to analysis the static impact. The results confirm one cointegrating relationship amongst the variables used in the study. The results a...
Abstract The premise of this study is to empirically appraise and identify the factors that can promote good health in Nigeria. The study use a VEC and Granger causality/block exogeneity tests methods to explain the linear relationship between the endogenous and exogenous variables and to test whether the endogenous variable life expectancy at birth (LEP) (proxied as good health) can be treated as exogenous. The results show that health expenditures, income per capita, education expenditure,...
ABSTRACT Financial sector has gained prominence as a possible determinant of saving and growth in the globalized financial markets. The financial sector in Africa, since the 1990s, continues to experience some reforms and development. However, despite all these reforms in the financial sector, the region has low levels of domestic savings resulting in the dependence on foreign resources for their infrastructure needs, which mostly are associated with volatilities and uncertainties. Based on t...
ABSTRACT Societies which depend upon agriculture for their livelihood may face the perils of climate change (Global Wanning), especially developing countries in the tropics and subtropics where some crops are already near their maximum temperature tolerance and where dry land and non-irrigated agriculture predominate. Yields will tend to decrease with even nominal amounts of climate change. Agriculture in Ghana is largely rain fed, therefore changes in climate in the form of changes in rainfa...
ABSTRACT Developing countries all over the world have come to realize the importance of FDI as an important source of economic growth and invariably welfare improvement. This is because it supplements domestic investment and brings positive spillover effects which are vital in economic development. As a result, developing countries including countries in SSA are now pursuing economic policies explicitly intended to improve conditions to attract FDI and to maximize its benefits. This study emp...
ABSTRACT This study seeks to contribute to the emerging economic literature on trade liberalization and the environment in developing countries. Using time series data from 1970 to 2010 obtained from the World Development Indicators (WDI) online database, the study applies least squares multiple regression technique to estimate the effect of trade openness on the environment in Ghana. We estimate the composition, scale and technique effect of trade liberalization on Ghana’s environment usin...
ABSTRACT The study examines the effect of education and fosterage on child labour with specific emphasis on fishing and mining communities. The study sample was on children between the ages of 5 – 17 years in Ghana using the 2012/2013 Ghana Living Standard Survey. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, we estimate a bivariate probit model while controlling for multicolloneirity and endogeneity in the data set. The results of the study suggests that quality of school and hours chil...
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 looked into the impact of government agricultural expenditure on economic growth in Nigeria. Time series data were gathered from secondary sources on real GDP, government agricultural expenditure, agricultural output and agricultural credit from the CBN statistical bulletin covering the period between 1981 and 2019. Econometric methods such as Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test, Johansen Co-integration test, Ordinary Least Squares method and Granger Causality tests wer...