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The purpose of this paper is to report on the use and content of written guidance produced by mental health services in England and Wales describing hospital leave for informally admitted patients.

Guidance on leave was requested from National Health Service (NHS) mental health trusts in England and health boards in Wales (n = 61) using a Freedom of Information submission. Data were analysed using content analysis.

In total, 32 organisations had a leave policy for informal patients. Policies varied considerably in content and quality. The content of policies was not supported by research evidence. Organisations appeared to have developed their policies by either adapting or copying the guidance on section 17 leave outlined in the Mental Health Act Codes of Practice for England and Wales (Department of Health, 2016; Welsh Government, 2016). Definitions of important terms, for example, leave and hospital premises, were either absent or poorly defined. Finally, some organisations appeared to be operating pseudo-legal coercive contracts to prevent informal patients from leaving hospital wards.

Research should be undertaken to explore the impact of local policies on the informal patient’s right to life and liberty.

All NHS organisations need to develop an evidence-based policy to facilitate the informal patient’s right to take leave. A set of national standards that organisations are required to comply with would help to standardise the content of leave policies.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to examine the use and content of local policies describing how informal patients can take leave from hospital.

This study assesses the relevance of foreign aid to the incidence of capital flight and unemployment in 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The study is for the period 1996–2018, and the empirical evidence is based on interactive quantile regressions in order to assess the nexuses throughout the conditional distribution of the unemployment outcome variable.

From the findings, capital flight has a positive unconditional incidence on unemployment, while foreign aid dampens the underlying positive unconditional nexus. Moreover, in order for the positive incidence of capital flight to be completely dampened, foreign aid thresholds of 2.230 and 3.964 (% of GDP) are needed at the 10th and 25th quantiles, respectively, of the conditional distribution of unemployment. It follows that the relevance of foreign aid in crowding out the unfavourable incidence of capital flight on unemployment is significantly apparent only in the lowest quantiles or countries with below-median levels of unemployment. The policy implications are discussed.

The study complements the extant literature by assessing the importance of development assistance in how capital flight affects unemployment in sub-Saharan Africa.

The purpose of the study is to assess if a policy of female inclusive education should be complemented with a policy of female ownership of bank accounts to fight female unemployment. The study therefore examines how female ownership of bank accounts moderates the incidence of female education on female unemployment.

The focus is on 44 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries for the period 2004–2018 and the empirical evidence is based on interactive quantile regressions. The interactions are tailored such that female ownership of bank accounts influences the effect of female inclusive education on female unemployment.

From the empirical findings it is evident that female ownership of bank accounts does not effectively moderate female education in order to reduce female unemployment unless complementary policies are considered. The complementary policies should be in view of boosting the interaction between female education and female bank account ownership in increasing employment opportunities for the female gender and by extension, reducing female unemployment. The invalidity of the moderating effect is robust to the inclusion of more elements in the conditioning information set as well as accounting for other dimensions of endogeneity such as simultaneity and the unobserved heterogeneity. Policy implications are discussed.

This study contributes to the extant literature by assessing how female ownership of bank accounts complements female inclusive education to reduce female unemployment.

This study aims to examine how the starting of business by females can be promoted by assessing critical levels of microfinance institutions (MFIs) penetration that policymakers must endeavor to maintain and/or attain in order for female unemployment not to represent a constraint in the doing of business. A constraint in doing business is understood in terms of the procedure that a woman has to go through to start a business.

The focus of the study is on 44 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2004–2018, while the empirical evidence is based on interactive quantile regressions.

The following findings are established. The validity of tested hypotheses is exclusively apparent in the lowest and highest quantiles of the conditional distribution of the procedure women have to go through to start a business. MFI penetration levels needed to reverse the unfavorable incidence of female unemployment in doing business are provided. These are minimum MFIs penetration thresholds that are required in order for female unemployment not to negatively affect the procedure that a woman should go through to start a business.

The study complements the extant literature by assessing critical microfinance penetration levels that are needed to promote female doing of business, contingent on existing levels of female doing of business.

This paper examines household and community characteristics that influence the entry of rural households into non-farm entrepreneurship and investigates the various factors that influence the market exit of non-farm enterprises (NFEs).

The authors use data from three rounds (2011/12, 2013/14 and 2015/16) of the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). The authors employ panel logit and multilevel logit models to examine the probability of opening one or more enterprises and the enterprise exit rates.

Results indicate that the likelihood of starting a NFE is positively associated with primary education attainment, access to credit, experiencing idiosyncratic shocks and availability of formal financial institutions. Age, higher education attainment and rising farm input prices constrain entry into non-farm entrepreneurship. The enterprise exit rate is negatively associated with small-town residence, wealth, access to tar/gravel roads and cellphone communication.

Policymakers and administrators should strive to address the challenges that communities face in transportation, communication and financial services. Policies aimed at stabilizing prices and increasing access to mobile communication, primary education and road infrastructure could help expand the rural non-farm sector.

Previous studies primarily examined the determinants of participation in NFEs at a given time using cross-sectional data. The current study uses panel data to study the dynamics of NFE ownership by investigating households’ decisions to enter into or exit from the sector.

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2022-0611

Purpose: Nigeria is the first African country to issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC) or fiat digital currency. The eNaira CBDC was issued as a money equivalent to be used along with paper Naira. This chapter identifies the features, opportunities and risks of the CBDC in Nigeria, also known as the eNaira.

Method: This chapter uses the discourse analysis method to assess the opportunities and risks of CBDC.

Findings: The opportunities which CBDC present to Nigeria include improved monetary policy transmission, convenience, efficient payments and increased financial inclusion. Some identified risks include digital illiteracy, increased propensity for cyber-attacks, data theft and the changing role of banks in a full-fledged CBDC economy.

Originality: This chapter contributes to the literature by evaluating the pros and cons of fiat digital currency such as a CBDC.

This study aims to contribute to the extant literature by assessing how microfinance institutions (MFIs) affect female entrepreneurship, contingent on female unemployment levels.

The study focuses on 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2004–2018. The empirical evidence is based on interactive quantile regressions, which put emphasis on nations with high, low and intermediate levels of business constraints. The analysis is tailored to provide avoidable female unemployment levels in the implementation of policies designed for MFIs to promote female business ownership.

The hypotheses that MFIs are favorable for female business owners and some critical rates of female unemployment should be avoided in order for the favorable incidence to be maintained is exclusively valid in the 10th quantiles of the cost of business by females and time to start-up a business by females. Policy implications are discussed.

This study has complemented the extant literature by providing actionable female unemployment critical masses that governments can act upon in tailoring the relevance of MFIs in the doing of business by females.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of different dimensions of institutional quality indices on the economic growth of Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries.

The study uses a panel data set of 31 SSA countries from 1991 to 2015 and employs a two-step system-GMM (Generalized Method of Moments) estimation technique.

The study's empirical results indicate that investment-promoting and democratic and regulatory institutions have a significant positive effect on economic growth; however, once these institutions are taken into account, conflict-preventing institutions do not have a significant impact on growth.

The study's findings suggest that countries in the region should continue their institutional reforms to enhance the region's economic growth. Specifically, institutions promoting investment, democracy and regulatory quality are crucial.

Unlike previous studies that use either composite measures of institutions or a single intuitional indicator in isolation, the present study has employed principal component analysis (PCA) to extract fewer institutional indicators from multivariate institutional indices. Thus, this paper provides important insights into the distinct role of different clusters of institutions in economic growth.

The present study investigates the nexus between health performance dynamics and economic growth in 43 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2004–2018.

Four health performance dynamics are used, notably: total life expectancy, male life expectancy, female life expectancy and risk of maternal death. The empirical evidence is based on quantile regressions (QRs) in order to put into perspective the conditional distribution of economic growth.

The following findings are established: (1) total life expectancy and male life expectancy increase economic growth exclusively in the 10th and 90th quantiles of economic growth; (2) female life expectancy boosts economic growth in the 90th quantile of economic growth and (3) the risk of maternal death reduces economic growth in the 75th and 90th quantiles of economic growth. Policy implications are discussed.

The study complements the literature on the nexus between health performance and economic growth by assessing the nexuses throughout the conditional distribution of economic growth.

This paper investigates the effect of abnormal increase in credit supply on economic growth in Nigeria after controlling for the quality of the legal system, size of central bank asset, banking sector cost efficiency and bank insolvency risk.

The authors employ the generalised method of moments (GMM) regression methodology to estimate the effect of abnormal increase in credit supply on two measures of economic growth in Nigeria.

The abnormal increase in credit supply has a significant effect on economic growth. Abnormal increase in credit supply increases real gross domestic product (GDP) growth. The abnormal increase in credit supply decreases real GDP per capita during the global financial crisis. The abnormal increase in domestic credit to the private sector has a significant positive effect on GDP per capita when there is strong legal system quality in Nigeria. In contrast, the abnormal increase in domestic credit to the private sector has a significant negative effect on real GDP growth when there is strong legal system quality in Nigeria.

The abnormal increase in credit supply is ineffective in increasing GDP per capita during crisis years. Policymakers should be cautious in pressuring financial institutions to release an abnormally large amount of credit into the economy particularly during financial crises. Rather, policymakers should encourage financial institutions to supply credit in a sustained manner – not in an abnormal manner –and in a way that supports growth.

The present study contributes to the literature by analysing the effect of abnormal increase in credit supply on economic growth in a developing country context.