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Population growth and urbanization pose several threats to terrestrial ecosystems, especially in forest ecological zones worldwide. This study examines the drivers of average willingness to pay (WTP) to restore urban forests in a developing country.

It utilizes survey data of households and employs a robust Heckman two-step estimator with bootstrapping to address the research objective.

The study underscores the role of income, gender, education and perception of the health benefits of forests as the underlying determinants of restoration bids by respondents. These drivers have a positive and statistically significant effect on forest restoration. Education and gender appear to be the most effective by magnitude, followed by the perception of health benefits, then income. Attention is therefore drawn to relevant economic, sociocultural and psychological factors towards the goal of forestry to improve well-being in urban centres.

This paper seeks to add methodological insights to the literature on reforestation and land use changes in the Accra metropolitan area and the local population’s WTP for reforestation in this area. In principle, this is a case study informing about the values people hold for forests in Ghana and Africa, where a knowledge gap exists with respect to their socio-economic valuation.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2022-0618

The purpose of the study is to investigate the role of disaggregated economic freedom measures in the foreign direct investment (FDI) and human development nexus.

The study uses a panel data of 32 selected African countries from 1996 to 2017. A dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) with fixed effects and instrumental variable (IV) econometric techniques was used to address issues of endogeneity and serial correlation commonly associated with panel time series data.

The Results indicate that FDI without accounting for absorptive factors has a positive but insignificant effect on human development for the selected African countries. However, FDI has a positive and significant effect on human development when interacted with measures of economic freedom such as investment freedom, business freedom and financial freedom. In contrast, yet plausible, FDI has a negative influence when interacted with property rights, trade freedom, government integrity and tax burden.

The study posits that to attract FDI into Africa with the purpose of improving human development, relevant absorptive capacities such as business, investment and financial freedom environment are critical. However, excessive capital flight and government interference through taxation and abuse of property rights should be controlled if the continent seeks to promote human development through FDI.

The novelty and originality of the study, are evident in the use of disaggregated measures of economic freedom as comprehensive absorptive capacities to examine how they complement FDI to impact on human development in Africa.

This study seeks to provide a robust piece of evidence of forest depletion in Ghana and its associated driver intensities to inform national policy decisions towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 and beyond.

Using a representative sample size of 733 households, which was obtained with the aid of a structured questionnaire, a descriptive analysis is used to show the evidence of forest depletion. For robustness purposes, the geographic information system (GIS) is used to provide a piece of remote sensing evidence to substantiate the claim. In addition, an ordered probit regression model is estimated given the ranked nature of the responses to determine the drivers of forest depletion.

The results provide evidence that the urban forests in the Greater Accra Region (GAR) of Ghana have been depleted. Overall, 44% argued that the depletion of the forests is high, 30% indicated that the depletion is moderate, while 26% indicated that the depletion is low. Consistent with the literature, the ordered probit regression results show that human behaviour, climate change and institutional failure are the driver intensities of forest depletion in the Region. Besides, the authors find an increasing order effect for all three drivers. Using a descriptive analysis, majority of the respondents posited that human behaviour is the main driver intensity, followed by climate change and then institutional failure. This study recommends the need for education and advocacy, community participation, law enforcement, resource mobilization, modern adaptation strategies and internalization of externalities as a way of controlling the drivers of forest depletion.

The study uses remote sensing techniques to provide empirical evidence of protected forest depletion in the GAR, Ghana. In addition, an ordered probit regression is used to identify the driver intensities that explain the depleted protected forests in the region.

This paper seeks to examine the motivating factors that propel people to use mobile money in the Greater Accra Region (GAR) of Ghana. The authors posit that the behaviour of a person, in terms of the choice and means of transaction, cannot be explained solely by utility-maximizing assumptions or rationality. Thus, other socio-cultural and psychological factors are crucial in determining whether a person will use mobile money.

This study uses a cross-sectional design to obtain primary data on 733 households from the GAR of Ghana to determine the drivers of mobile money use. Given the binary nature of the dependent variable, a logit model and its marginal effects are estimated. Furthermore, parametric and non-parametric statistical tests are used to examine gender effect and mobile money use.

The study finds that technology savvy cohorts (youthful age cohorts), available services such as phone credit recharge, education and income are among the key determinants of mobile money use in Ghana. Furthermore, parametric and non-parametric tests of mobile money use on gender show a statistically significant difference in gender use of mobile money, albeit, marginal. The findings imply that consistent use of mobile money to access social and economic services can go a long way in promoting financial inclusion, financial empowerment and general wellbeing of people.

Households in developing countries especially Ghana have rapidly embraced mobile money technology. However, what determines the household level of adoption, to the best of our knowledge, is unknown and yet to be tested. This study bridges that gap in the empirical literature as well as contributes to policy decisions.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-05-2020-0271

This paper acknowledges the rising levels of non-performing loans (NPLs) and the consequences associated with such patterns to an emerging economy like Ghana. In theory, one would expect rising NPLs to have a negative impact on an economy, especially regarding credit creation and private sector growth. This research, consistent with empirical literature, constructs a measure of financial market development to investigate its effect on Ghana's NPLs.

The fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) econometric technique is used as a way of addressing common time series identification issues such as endogeneity and serial correlation.

The study finds that the growth of the financial market has a negative and statistically significant relationship with NPLs in Ghana. Therefore, building a stable financial sector is key to addressing Ghana’s rising rates of NPLs.

Applying the breaks to Ghana's NPLs would involve deepening credit and improving efficiency through good governance. The study suggests that such a mechanism would increase financial sector performance and reduce the growth risks arising from the industry.

The study analyzes the influence of financial market development on the quarterly growth of NPLs in Ghana. Most studies only focus on annual growth of NPLs.

The digital divide is supposed to place disadvantaged economies like Ghana in a position where using information and communication technology for development might not be an immediate reality. The purpose of this current study is to argue that the adoption of e‐business practices has benefit for small Ghanaian exporters' organizational improvement, and begin a first‐level investigation in that regard.

This study was exploratory and focused on a sample of active, non‐traditional exporters in Accra. This sample represented the best typology of small export firms in Ghana that had been regular exporters from 2000‐2004. In all, 60 firms responded to questionnaires on e‐business and exporting. Analysis of the data was mainly by means of descriptive statistics.

One‐way ANOVA analysis revealed that the export firm internationalization (measured by export intensity) has no bearing on the level of e‐business involvement or perceptions of the strategic value of e‐business. However, export firms who were more involved in e‐business had a higher perception of the usefulness of e‐business to their export operation. One‐way ANOVA analysis also revealed that for the export firms involved in some e‐business activity, the more internationalized they were, the more importance they attached to e‐business as providing some sort of organizational improvement leverage.

Given the exploratory nature of this study, more research is needed to study internal and external barriers to e‐business adoption by these firms, as well as the relationship between e‐business adoption and performance.

One of the first e‐business studies focusing on export firms on the disadvantaged end of the digital divide.