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This paper aims to examine the distributional channel of monetary policy (MP) and evaluate how financial development (FD) affects the transmission mechanism from MP to income inequality.

The empirical investigation is implemented for 32 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2000–2017, with the aid of vector autoregressions and a dynamic panel data model.

This study shows that MP has a significant impact on income inequality and the financial system plays an important role by dampening the dis-equalising effects of MP shocks. Both MP and FD directly exert redistributive effects. However, the financial system appears to wield the greatest impact and contribute more to the inequality dynamics.

The policy-relevant conclusion is that the financial system is crucial for the monetary transmission mechanism and the effects of MP actions. As the economy develops financially, it may require less movement in the policy position to achieve the desired policy outcome. Also, macroeconomic stabilisation policies may not be distributionally neutral and may have a role to play in averting longer-term increases in inequality.

Contrary to previous studies, this study indicates MP by the structural shocks to purge the MP stance of the issues of endogenous and anticipatory actions. A distinctive finding of this paper is that cross-country differences in monetary regimes and income explain a significant variation in the distributional impacts of monetary policy. Notwithstanding, the evidence shows that the strength of the transmission is more dependent on FD than the nature of the policy regime.

This paper aims to assess the impact of digital financial innovation on financial system development in Common Market for eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). This paper evaluates the dynamic relationship between digital financial innovation measures and financial system development using time series data from COMESA countries for the period 1997–2019.

A dynamic autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) was adopted and the mean group (MG), pooled mean group (PMG) and dynamic fixed effect (DFE) of the model were estimated to evaluate the short- and long-run impact. In addition, the dynamic generalized method of moments (DGMM) was adopted for a robustness check. The Hausman test results show PMG to be the most consistent and efficient estimator, while the coefficient of lagged dependent variable of different GMM is less than the fixed effect coefficient, and, as such, suggests system GMM is the most suitable estimator. Data for the study were sourced from World Bank Development Indicator (WDI, 2020), World Governance Indicator (WGI, 2020) and World Bank Global Financial Development Database (GFD, 2020).

The result shows that digital financial innovation significantly impacts financial system development in the long run. As such, the evidence revealed that automated teller machines (ATMs), point of sale (POS), mobile payments (MP) and mobile banking are significant and contribute positively to financial system development in the long run, while mobile money (MM) and Internet banking (INB) are insignificant but exhibit positive and inverse relationship with financial development respectively. Further investigation revealed that institutional quality and a stable macroeconomic environment including their interactive term are significantly imperative in predicting financial system development in the COMESA region.

Researchers recommend a cohesive and conscious policy that would checkmate the divergence in the short run and suggest a common regional innovative financial strategy that could be pursued to incentivize technology transfer needed to promote financial system development in the long run. More so, plausible product and process innovations may be adapted to complement innovative institutions in the different components of the COMESA financial system.

Digital financial innovation services if well managed increase the inherent benefits in financial system development.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents new background information on digital financial innovation that may stimulate the development of the financial system, particularly in the COMESA region. It also exposes the relevance of digital financial innovation, institutional quality and stable macroeconomic environment as well as their interactive effect on COMESA financial system development.

The importance of sovereign bond as a source of financing revenue deficit, benchmarking for corporate bonds and debt management in Africa, calls for continual monitoring of its volatility dynamics. This study evaluates the nature of sovereign bond volatility interaction between African countries using bivariate BEKK-GARCH (1, 1) model. Based on a sample of eight African countries, the results show evidence of unidirectional volatility spillover from Morocco sovereign bond to Egypt sovereign bond. Next, the results show absence of volatility interaction between Ghana and Nigeria sovereign bonds. The results further show the existence of bidirectional volatility transmission between Uganda and Kenya. Finally, the results indicate evidence of bidirectional volatility interaction between Botswana and South Africa. Overall, the results show existence of full interaction between Uganda–Kenya and Botswana–South Africa sovereign bond returns, partial interaction between Egypt and Morocco sovereign bond returns and no interaction between Ghana and Nigeria sovereign bonds markets. Thus, these results provide valuable implications for sovereign and corporate credit risk management, as well as strategy for monitoring and minimising negative effect of sovereign bond volatility spillover in Africa.

The paper investigates if the process that led to the birth of the Euro Area had a significant impact in homogenizing the capital structure decisions of European firms since the first introduction of the common currency.

A large sample of firms was constructed, and a Tobit-censored regression model was utilized to investigate the determinants of firms' observed capital structures. The Black–Scholes–Merton model was used to infer market values of assets, as well as the volatility of those values, from the observed market values of equity and the corresponding volatility. The existing differences in national tax rules were considered for estimating firm-specific marginal tax rates.

It was found that, despite the currency union and the institutional harmonization process, certain factors still play a different role. In particular, the impact of profitability is consistent with the pecking order view in some countries, and with the trade-off theory in others. Assets risk, measured as the annualized volatility of the market enterprise value, is the best predictor of observed leverage ratios. The sector of activity is significant in determining leverage decisions even when assets' risk is taken into account. Despite the monetary union and the increased financial and institutional integration in the Euro Area, the country of origin still plays a significant role in capital structure decisions, suggesting that other country-level factors may affect firms' financing behaviour.

The paper indicates that, despite the long harmonization process of institutions, regulations and public budget required to join the Euro, firms' financing decisions are still affected by country-specific factors once the common currency is introduced. Therefore, new entrant countries in the Euro area should not expect their companies to immediately conform with those located in other countries within the common currency area.

This article investigated the impact of the currency change from national currencies to the Euro on the determinants of capital structure choices. It was shown that, despite the long harmonization process that led to the birth of the Euro Area, national factors still affect firms' financing decisions. This provides guidance for policymakers in countries that are planning to join the Euro about the impact this will have on firms' financing decisions in the entrant country.

This paper analyses the possibility of Latin America's (LA) major economies adopting dollarization, considering that in the last decade macroeconomic instability has once again challenged the ability of certain economies to properly manage their own currency.

To determine the feasibility of adopting the US dollar as official currency, the author uses the framework of optimum currency area (OCA) theory, since, in fact, dollarization is an incomplete monetary union. The author uses a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model to identify what type of structural shock — country-specific, regional or global — prevails in LA economies. For this purpose, the US output is used to represent the global output and determine how the shocks of the US influence the output trajectory of each LA nation. The higher the influence of the US product, the lower the costs of adopting the US dollar.

The results of the variance decomposition show that the influence of the US shocks in the gross domestic product (GDP) trajectory of LA countries has significantly decreased over the last two decades, even in the currently dollarized economies. The estimates for Venezuela and Argentina show that the importance of US shocks in the trajectory of their GDP is low. Therefore, the cost of adopting the US dollar as the official currency would be high.

In view of hyperinflation and macroeconomic imbalances in certain LA nations, the dollarization debate has resurfaced in recent years. However, the literature that empirically evaluates the feasibility of adopting dollarization as a monetary system under current economic conditions is limited.

The purpose of this study is to document how a central bank can perform its primary and secondary functions in a Sharīʿah-compliant manner. It also seeks to investigate the outcomes of the experiments of Muslim-majority countries in this regard.

As a first step, a detailed review of existing literature is conducted, which discusses the views of scholars and practitioners on the central banking mechanism in a fully Sharīʿah-compliant financial system. Moving further, the case studies of Iran, Sudan and Pakistan are presented to highlight experiences of regulators from three Muslim-majority countries, which aimed to achieve full compliance with Sharīʿah (Islamic law) principles related to Islamic finance. To evaluate their models, an assessment of their practices is performed in the light of Sharīʿah rules and principles based on existing literature. Finally, the issues involved in establishing a Sharīʿah-compliant central bank (SCCB) are discussed and improvements are suggested.

It is found that Iran played an effective role in pursuing broader objectives of monetary policy by setting priorities for credit allocation and assisting the government in reducing expenses; however, with respect to instruments, its experience is limited to the rebranding of conventional products. Sudan has not only used monetary policy to effectively curb inflation but also it has introduced various indirect instruments to perform monetary operations. Pakistan succeeded in formulating a theoretical roadmap to establish a SCCB but the desired objectives could not be achieved because of multiple factors.

This study has important policy implications for regulators and policymakers from Muslim countries, who can use the findings in shaping effective Sharīʿah-compliant central banking practices in their respective countries.

This study discusses the salient features of an important Islamic financial institution, the central bank and evaluates the experiments of three Muslim-majority countries in implementing Sharīʿah-compliant central banking practices. To the best of the knowledge, this evaluation has not been performed in the existing literature and the present study fills in this gap.

This study aims to investigate, for the first time in the literature, the stochastic properties of the US aggregate health-care price inflation rate series, using the data on health-care inflation rates for a panel of 17 major US urban areas for the period 1966-2006.

This goal is undertaken by applying the first- and second-generation panel unit root tests and the panel stationary test developed recently by Carrion-i-Silvestre et al. (2005) that allows for endogenously determined multiple structural breaks and is flexible enough to control for the presence of cross-sectional dependence.

The empirical findings indicate that after controlling for the presence of cross-sectional dependence, finite sample bias, and asymptotic normality, the US aggregate health-care price inflation rate series can be characterized as a non-stationary process and not as a regime-wise stationary innovation process.

The research findings apply to understanding of health-care sector price escalation in US urban areas. These findings have timely implications for the understanding of the data structure and, therefore, constructs of economic models of urban health-care price inflation rates. The results confirming the presence of a unit root indicating a high degree of inflationary persistence in the health sector suggests need for further studies on health-care inflation rate persistence using the alternative measures of persistence. This study’s conclusions do not apply to non-urban areas.

The mean and variance of US urban health-care inflation rate are not constant. Therefore, insurers and policy rate setters need good understanding of the interplay of the various factors driving the explosive health-care insurance rates over the large US metropolitan landscape. The study findings have implications for health-care insurance premium rate setting, health-care inflation econometric modeling and forecasting.

Payers (private and public employers) of health-care insurance rates in US urban areas should evaluate the value of benefits received in relation to the skyrocketing rise of health-care insurance premiums.

This is the first empirical research focusing on the shape of urban health-care inflation rates in the USA.

The market-based monetary policy framework has been favoured by Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) economies. Hence, this study aims to investigate the effect of monetary policy channels on the sectoral value added and sustainable economic growth in ECOWAS. Data from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund over 2013–2019 were sourced for thirteen member countries. ECOWAS is found to have very high inflation level, interest and exchange rates.

The study adopted the Driscoll–Kraay fixed-effects ordinary least squares regression (OLS) estimator.

The findings revealed that while the effect of monetary policy channels on the agricultural sector value added is largely heterogenous and significantly in-elastic, the one on the industrial and services sectors are overwhelmingly homogeneous and negative, but insignificant for the services sector. Moreover, the effect of monetary policy channels on sustainable economic growth is also homogeneously asymmetric, with imminent stagflation, while the interactive effects of monetary policy channels are heterogeneous on sustainable economic growth and economic sectors. Therefore, an inflation targeting monetary policy stance is generally recommended with prioritised exchange rate stabilisation amid sufficient fiscal space.

This is amongst the first studies to investigate monetary policy channels, sectoral outputs and sustainable growth in the ECOWAS region with a rigorous analysis and found implications for policy.

This article examines the effects of credit to private sector on the business and trade activities. The effectiveness of rapid expansion in public and private borrowing through state's intervention after COVID-19 pandemic has been assessed in this study.

The model to determine the role of credit expansion is based on four equations estimated through panel least square technique on 18 years data of 186 countries.

It is concluded that credit to private sector and external debt improve the investment in infrastructure, which is a significant determinant of gross domestic product growth. Empirical evidences corroborate that higher number of firms using banks to finance their investment and the volume of broad money determine the magnitude of credit to private sector.

This study explores some new evidences and aspects of the credit financing which have not been discussed in this way before.

Political Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), based on ideas about deliberative democracy, have been criticised for increasing corporate power and democratic deficits. Yet, deliberative ideals are flourishing in the corporate world in the form of dialogues with a broad set of stakeholders and engagement in wider societal issues. Extractive industry areas, with extensive corporate interventions in weak regulatory environments, are particularly vulnerable to asymmetrical power relations when businesses engage with society. This paper aims to illustrate in what way deliberative CSR practices in such contexts risk enhancing corporate power at the expense of community interests.

This paper is based on a retrospective qualitative study of a Canadian oil company, operating in an Albanian oilfield between 2009 and 2016. Through a study of three different deliberative CSR practices – market-based land acquisition, a grievance redress mechanism and dialogue groups – it highlights how these practices in various ways enforced corporate interests and prevented further community mobilisation.

By applying Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony, the analysis highlights how deliberative CSR activities isolated and silenced community demands, moved some community members into the corporate alliance and prevented alternative visions of the area to be articulated. In particular, the close connection between deliberative practices and monetary compensation flows is underlined in this dynamic.

The paper contributes to critical scholarship on political CSR by highlighting in what way deliberative practices, linked to monetary compensation schemes, enforce corporate hegemony by moving community members over to the corporate alliance.