Search results

The study aims to estimate the short- and long-run effects of monetary policy on residential property prices in South Africa. Over the past decades, there has been a monetary policy shift, from targeting money supply and exchange rate to inflation. The shifts have affected residential property market dynamics.

The Johansen cointegration approach was used to estimate the effects of changes in monetary policy proxies on residential property prices using quarterly data from 1980 to 2022.

Mortgage finance and economic growth have a significant positive long-run effect on residential property prices. The consumer price index, the inflation targeting framework, interest rates and exchange rates have a significant negative long-run effect on residential property prices. The Granger causality test has depicted that exchange rate significantly influences residential property prices in the short run, and interest rates, inflation targeting framework, gross domestic product, money supply consumer price index and exchange rate can quickly return to equilibrium when they are in disequilibrium.

There are limited arguments whether the inflation targeting monetary policy framework in South Africa has prevented residential property market boom and bust scenarios. The study has found that the implementation of inflation targeting framework has successfully reduced booms in residential property prices in South Africa.

This study aims to examine how couplepreneurs foster an entrepreneurial mindset in their kids.

A qualitative research approach with semi-structured interviews was used as the data collection technique. Narrative analysis was conducted on a sample of 20 couplepreneurs in Mthatha, South Africa.

Narratives of how couplepreneurs foster an entrepreneurial mindset in their kids included purchasing toys and games for kids that encourage entrepreneurship; competition and team activities among kids that are related to entrepreneurship; the piggy bank; encouraging kids to read entrepreneurial books; and kid entrepreneur showcases.

Sample size challenges are a notable limitation, including research being conducted in only one province of South Africa. Caution is advised when attempting to generalise the results to other contexts.

Understanding the strategies used by couplepreneurs to instil an entrepreneurial mindset in children can help parents to influence and encourage their children's entrepreneurial growth, resulting in more creative and innovative people who make a positive contribution to society, economy and the community.

While there is a body of literature on couple entrepreneurship, there are shortcomings in studies examining how coupleprenuers in African countries instil an entrepreneurial mindset in their children. As a result, this study aims to complement the current corpus of African literature on entrepreneurship, particularly in the context of South Africa.

This paper aims to investigate the role of corporate governance on the bank profitability of Indian banks vis-à-vis South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations.

For the Corporate Governance Index, the authors examined board accountability, transparency and disclosure and audit committee, while Tobin’s Q, return on equity and return on assets are used to measure the bank’s profitability. The study used a two-stage analysis based on balanced panel data for robust findings. Sample of this study consists of 60 commercial banks from India and 60 banks from SAARC nations for the period of 2009–2021. This study used panel regression and a generalized method of moment approach using the CAMELS framework on banking industry-specific variables to determine their respective impacts.

The findings of this study suggest that board accountability is positive and significantly affects the profitability of banks as indicated by return on assets, return on equity and Tobin’s Q. In contrast, the audit committee has a positive and insignificant impact on return on assets, return on equity and Tobin’s Q, while transparency and disclosure have a negative and significant impact on these metrics. Furthermore, the country dummy result shows a significant positive impact on all the bank performance parameters, implying that Indian banks have the highest degree of convergence with corporate governance as compared to other SAARC nations.

This study provides insight to the regulators, policymakers and financial institutions to evaluate the role of corporate governance in emerging economies. However, the findings of the study should be interpreted with caution, as the results are sensitive to the disparity between India and other SAARC nations' government policies, climatic circumstances and cultural or religious traditions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to gauge the performance of Indian banks vis-à-vis SAARC nations using the CAMELS framework approach. Further, findings of this study suggest some novel evidence tying corporate governance quality with the profitability of banks among SAARC nations.

This paper aims to investigate the nonlinear effects of bank regulation stringency on bank lending in 23 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries over the period 1997–2017.

This study employs the dynamic panel threshold regression (PTR) model, which addresses endogeneity and heterogeneity problems within a nonlinear framework. It also uses indices of entry barriers, mixing of banking and commerce restrictions, activity restrictions and capital regulatory requirements from the updated databases of the World Bank's Bank Regulation and Supervision Surveys as measures of bank regulation.

The linearity test results support the existence of nonlinear effects in the relationship between bank lending and entry barriers or capital regulations in the selected SSA economies. The dynamic PTR estimation results reveal that bank lending responds positively when the stringency of entry barriers is below the threshold of 62.8%. However, once the stringency of entry barriers exceeds that threshold level, bank credit reacts negatively and significantly. By contrast, changes in capital regulation stringency do not affect bank lending, either below or above the obtained threshold value of 76.5%.

These results can help policymakers design bank regulatory measures that will promote the resilience and safety of the banking system but at the same time not bring unintended effects to bank lending.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the nonlinear effects of bank regulatory measures on bank lending using the dynamic PTR model and SSA context.

Even if digital financial services have a positive impact on financial inclusion, it creates a digital as well as gender divide within and across countries, creating regional disparity even within developing nations. Though pandemic has initiated digitalization of various services, there has been scanty research on whether digital transfer of income can improve digital financial inclusion in post-pandemic era, especially in developing countries. The purpose of the current study is to explain the regional disparity within developing countries from three regions East Asia Pacific, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, using latest World Findex data, 2021.

The author takes an instrumental variable approach to run bivariate probit model to find the factors that motivate the users to make digital payments.

The study observes that electronic transfer of wages, government transfers and remittances can motivate individuals to make use of digital mode of transactions and mobile. The practice of formal saving and borrowings are the prerequisites. However, this mechanism holds good for East Asia Pacific and not for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, which are poor in information and communication technology infrastructure. Women are lagging behind men, but digital transfer of wages motivate them to make digital transaction.

Digitalization of all government services and provision of affordable mobile network and internet services are necessary for regions like South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In East Asia Pacific region, data protection, data governance and better regulatory framework are required. Higher female labor force participation with digital transfer of wages and empowerment with smartphones are key to reducing the Gender gap.

The current study corrects for the possible endogeneity issue, which the extant literature has not paid attention to, and provides region-specific and gender-specific policy recommendations for an improved digital inclusion.

Eco-entrepreneurship is a topical issue in academic and professional literature over the past decade. In Africa, it is a relatively new concept fast gaining momentum with wide applicability and acceptance given its benefits in promoting consumer adoption of sustainable lifestyles, resilient environment, economic empowerment, and a win–win balance in the ecology and economy nexus. Amidst the growing impact of climate change and environmental degradation, eco-entrepreneurship has become a necessity, with emerging opportunities being in urban waste management, recycling, and renewable energy technologies. Regardless of the benefits of eco-entrepreneurship, regulatory and governance structures inform the viability of any initiatives. This chapter presents how political ecology structures intersect and impact eco-entrepreneurship in Africa. Given that nations’ approaches can differ, this study provides a case study synthesis of two major African economies namely Nigeria and South Africa. The authors document the predominant political orientation and attitude toward eco-entrepreneurship. First, the authors argue that the political environment is indifferent to the potential of the eco-entrepreneurial framework, hence applying a one-size-fits-all approach. Second is that the attention to eco-entrepreneurship by policymakers is economically inclined, they focus mainly on economic growth opportunities; equally, that eco-entrepreneurship offers opportunities for the protection of social and environmental integrity cannot be ignored. Third, is the bandwagon effect associated with eco-entrepreneurship initiatives, where the need to align with international bodies and states drives a Eurocentric concern? The authors conclude that fostering enabling policy environment can help enhance the productivity of current eco-entrepreneurial initiatives as well as attract new ones needed to explore eco-entrepreneurship benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate investor herding behaviour and the effect of presidential elections on investor herding behaviour in African stock markets at the sector level.

The study segregates listed firms into financial, consumer goods, consumer services and basic materials sectors and uses the cross-sectional absolute deviation approach as a metric of detecting herding in each of the sectors. The authors extend the model to tease out the effect of presidential elections on investor herding behaviour.

The study reveals that sectoral differences are fundamental to the evolution of herding. Herding is prominent in a financial services sector dominated by banks. The phenomenon also prevails in markets with smaller consumer goods and services sectors. A post-presidential election effect on investor herding is found for the consumer goods and services sectors of Ghana and a pre-presidential election effect is documented in Nigeria's consumer services sector. The authors conclude that post-presidential election effect is as a result of political connections whilst a pre-presidential election effect is attributable to political business cycles.

The study is based on four African countries due to data constraints. Nonetheless, the study is the first in Africa to the best of the authors' knowledge, and the results are very solid and have a lot of practical and policy implications.

The study has implications for investors as it guides investment behaviour in pre- and post-presidential election periods.

Past studies on investor herding behaviour in African stock markets have largely concentrated on the aggregate market. Knowledge on sectoral differences in investor herding is almost non-existent for African stock markets. Furthermore, premised on the fact that stock markets react to presidential elections, there is no known study that have attempted to examine the effect of presidential elections on investor herding behaviour. This paper contributes to the literature by providing evidence on sectoral differences in investor herding behaviour and the effect of presidential elections on sectoral herding behaviour.

This study examines how the introduction of mobile money transfers, while making it efficient and convenient to access funds, has affected rural households’ savings behavior and the banking sector.

This study utilizes Fiji’s most recent agricultural census data to model the agricultural household’s saving decision. The study estimates an probit model to examine rural households' savings behavior. Furthermore, it utilizes time series secondary data to examine how funds transfer has been channeled to rural households in Fiji.

Firstly, the results demonstrate that with the mobile money transfer platform launch, the banking sector has lost substantial money previously used to pass through its system, thus losing service fees and interest income. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate that those using mobile wallet platforms to receive money are more likely not to have a savings account with the bank. Noting the cultural systems and social settings of the native households and the ease of payments via the mobile platform, they tend to spend more on consumption rather than saving, thus making these households more vulnerable during shocks such as natural disasters.

While mobile money transfer is hailed as a revolution, no research has yet picked up the downside to it, that of undermining the very effort by policymakers to get low-income rural households to save. Secondly, this study also highlights how mobile money transfer deprives the banking system of a significant transfer fee income and a source of funds to pool and lend to earn interest income. Furthermore, this study brings to the forefront a dichotomy about how a rural indigenous community sees the welfare and prosperity of their community much differently than what economics textbooks portray.

The world has seen significant level of emergence of the developing nations over the years. But the world has been going through certain economic crises – be it the worldwide recession of 2008 – that had a worldwide impact, be it the ongoing depression in economic activities since 2018–2019 due to several economic issues. Under these circumstances, how far these developing nations have been able to cope up with is an issue of worry. Can they overcome these depressions or recessions and get on the sustainable path of progress again and compete at par with the developed nations? In this chapter, we have used multiple regression analysis to analyse how far and to what extent these recessions have had impact on the exchange rates (ERs) and other important variables, including growth, of the selected eight developing nations. By taking ER as our dependent variable and five important macroeconomic indicators as regressors, we have checked if the recession caused any structural breaks in these economies or not. We have found the significant impact of gross domestic product (GDP), inflation and trade balance on ER, while the effects of net foreign direct investment (FDI) and rate of interest were not significant. By applying Chow test, we have seen that there is existence of structural breaks in these economies over the period of 2007–2010. These breaks can be attributed to the global recession as well as economic activities prior to the recession. We have also conducted few diagnostic tests to prove the robustness of our analysis.

The “United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal” 9 seeks to “… foster innovation” in all sectors of an economy. Thus, this conceptual piece addresses the indirect effect of innovative behaviour (INB) between total quality management (TQM) and innovation performance (INP). It further explores the context-contingent effect of four external factors [government regulation (GOV), market dynamism (MKD), competitive intensity (CMP) and technological turbulence (TUR)] on the TQM–INB linkage.

By incorporating both theoretical and empirical works in the fields of strategic management, innovation and business performance, this conceptual piece constructs a conceptual model, using a systematic literature review, alongside suppositions that can be tested in further studies.

This conceptual piece puts forward that TQM will be favourably connected to INP, and this favourable association will be mediated by INB. Moreover, GOV, MKD, CMP and TUR will have a favourable context-contingent effect on the favourable direct connection between TQM and INB.

This conceptual piece affords suggestions for both practitioners and researchers alike in the areas of innovative and strategic decision-making in banking establishments for reinforcing INP by introducing TQM, INB, GOV, MKD, CMP and TUR as innovative-strategic tools. It also delivers suggestions for forthcoming academics to examine this conceptual piece, empirically, in diverse banking sites worldwide.

Practical lessons for managers, employees, customers and consultants within the banking sector for the superior advantage of all key stakeholders are deliberated.

This study provides a new model to demonstrate how TQM leads to INP by passing through INB of employees, and how TQM fosters INB under diverse degrees of GOV, MKD, CMP and TUR. It shows how internal factors (7 TQM dimensions) and external factors (GOV, MKD, CMP and TUR) interact to foster employee INB. It also underscores the theoretical authority of three theories utilised, both individually and in combination, by using them to explain new relationships.