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The growing volume of trade misinvoicing in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) calls for serious concern, particularly given its effect on macroeconomic fundamentals. Despite the growing body of literature on the growth effect of trade misinvoicing, empirical evidence on the role of governance in moderating the effect is quite scarce, particularly for SSA. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the growth effect of trade misinvoicing in SSA as well as the moderating role of governance in this regard.

The feasible generalised least square estimator was applied to analyse relevant data, spanning 2009–2018, of 35 SSA countries. Governance indicators were classified into economic, political and institutional governance, and their individual role in moderating the nexus between trade misinvoicing and economic growth was explored.

This paper showed the presence of cross-sectional dependence among SSA countries and long-run convergence of the estimated variables. The empirical finding showed that trade misinvoicing has a negative growth effect in the selected SSA countries, but both economic and political governance are crucial in lowering the observed negative growth effect.

To curtail trade misinvoicing, SSA policymakers should go beyond just designing anti-money laundering policies to effectively implementing the policies for improved growth prospects. More so, the government of each SSA country must devise means of strengthening governance and building effective, accountable and transparent institutional frameworks that will constantly check and discourage trade misinvoicing activities.

The originality of this paper stems from its novel assessment of the role governance plays in moderating the growth effect of trade misinvoicing in SSA using the feasible generalised least square estimator. It also details the strategies needed to effectively tackle trade misinvoicing.

This study aims to better understand the effects of speeches as a valuable communication tool for central banks. It extends the analysis of the effects of public speeches on jumps to determine whether individual speakers matter partly because of their name, position or institution.

This study detects intraday jumps using a robust-to-jump volatility estimator that accounts for deterministic seasonality. As a result, this study removes spurious jumps that occur when volatility is high and consider the relatively small jumps that occur when volatility is low. After identifying jumps, this study examines their reactions to senior official speeches and macroeconomic news surrounding the US and European Union (EU) financial crises.

Despite having the most influential individual speakers, this study finds that the impact of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and European Central Bank (ECB) is mitigated because the two institutions have a relatively small impact on currency jumps. This finding shows that the speaker’s name is more important than his or her institution affiliation. While the Federal Reserve Bank President and Chief Executive, as well as ECB board members, significantly reduce jump sizes, particularly during the EU crisis period, both the Fed Chairman and the ECB President increase the magnitude of the jump in both the US crisis and noncrisis periods, contributing to market instability.

The implications of the results include international portfolio management, currency derivatives pricing and hedging, risk management and market efficiency.

The findings contribute to a better understanding of the effects of senior official speech attributes on currency jumps in various economic states. The results raise questions about the speaker’s name, institution and position’s effectiveness in calming markets and reducing uncertainty.