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This study aims to revisit the empirical debate about the asymmetric relationship between oil prices, energy consumption, CO₂ emissions and economic growth in a panel of 184 countries from 1981 to 2020.

A relatively new research method, the PVAR system GMM, is applied.

The outcome of the PVAR system GMM model at the group level in the study suggests that oil prices exert a positive but statistically insignificant effect on economic growth. Energy consumption is inversely related to economic growth but statistically significant, and the correlation between CO₂ emissions and economic growth is negative but statistically insignificant. The Granger causality test indicates that oil prices, CO₂ emissions, oil rents, energy consumption and savings jointly Granger-cause economic growth. A unidirectional causality runs from energy consumption, savings and economic growth to oil prices. At countries’ income grouping levels, oil prices, oil rent, CO₂ emissions, energy consumption and savings jointly Granger-cause economic growth for the high-income and upper-middle-income countries groups only, while those variables did not jointly Granger-cause economic growth for the low-income and lower-middle-income countries groups. The modulus emanating from the eigenvalue stability condition with the roots of the companion matrix indicates that the model is stable. The results support the asymmetric impacts of oil prices on economic growth and aid policy formulation, particularly the cross-country disparities regarding the nexus between oil prices and growth.

From a methodological perspective, to the best of the author’s knowledge, the study is the first attempt to use the PVAR system GMM and such a large sample group of 184 economies in the post-COVID-19 era to examine the impacts of oil prices on countries’ growth while controlling for other crucial variables, which is noteworthy. Two, using the World Bank categorisation of countries according to income groups, the study adds another layer of contribution to the literature by decomposing the 184 sample economies into four income groups: high-income, low-income, upper-middle-income and lower-middle-income groups to investigate the potential for asymmetric effects of oil prices on growth, the first of its kind in the post-COVID-19 period.

This paper discusses the problems of managing an acquisition windfall in a Nigerian university library after over a decade of acquisition drought brought about as a result of a serious downturn in the economy. The windfall, which came in the form of a World Bank $120 million facility to 20 federally owned Nigerian universities for the purchase of books, journals, library and laboratory equipment as well as staff training and expatriate supplementation, drastically changed acquisition patterns and rates in the affected university libraries. The responses by the library of the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria, to the challenges of involving the faculty in the book selection processes, ensuring balance, processing the orders and receiving the materials into the library are highlighted. Post World Bank faculty prospects of Nigerian university libraries are also explored.

This study aims to investigate the contingent roles real effective exchange rates (REERs) play in mediating the effects of oil revenue on the agriculture sector value-added in 25 major and minor oil-exporting (MIOEC) countries during the period of 1975–2014.

The panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) estimator proposed by Pesaran et al. (1999) was relied upon to achieve the objectives of the study. This estimator involves a pool of small cross-sectional units over a long-time span that covers for 25 oil-exporting countries over 39 years (1975–2014).

This paper reveals the following findings. Firstly, oil revenue has a direct negative effect on agricultural value-added in the short- and long-term. This finding holds for full sample and subsamples of major oil-exporting (MAOEC) and MIOEC countries. Further assessment reveals that the magnitude of the impact is larger for MAOEC than that of the MIOEC. Secondly, the finding for the long-run effect shows that the contingent effect of real exchange rate on the nexus between oil revenue and agricultural value-added is negative and statistically significant at the conventional level for the full sample. This suggests that, in the long-run, the appreciation in real exchange rates exacerbate the negative marginal effects of oil revenue on agricultural value-added in all oil-exporting countries. However, when sub-samples of MAOEC and MIOEC are considered, the contingent effect disappeared (become insignificant) in MAOEC while it is positive and statistically significant in MIOEC. Thus, in the long-run, the appreciation in real exchange rates diminishes the negative marginal effects of oil revenue on agricultural value-added in MIOEC. While oil revenue has a direct negative effect, its effect is also moderated by the variations in REERs in MIOEC in the long-run. Finally, in the short-run, fluctuations in the real exchange rate do not matter for the nexus of oil revenue and agriculture sector in these countries whether minor or MAOEC countries.

This study contributes to the debate in the empirical literature on the Dutch disease effect and “oil curse”. Using the appropriate panel ARDL empirical framework, it provides evidence on how exchange rate variations in the oil-exporting countries influence the nature of the effects of the oil revenue on agricultural sectors in the long-run but not in the short-run. Contingent effects of REERs only appear to exist in MIOEC in the long-run.

The purpose of this paper is to study the potential loss of competitiveness due to higher oil prices through the monetary channel in a group of six oil producing countries.

A dynamic time series methodology, Dynamic Simultaneous Equations, is applied to Vector Autoregressive Moving Average model with exogenous variables.

Mixed evidence was found of loss of competitiveness due to high oil prices in the sample.

Findings are useful both for academic researchers in international finance or development economics. Policy makers will find the results useful for implementing stabilization or neutralization policies.

The empirical work extends earlier research in several directions including extension to six oil‐producing countries, use of data over the flexible exchange rate period, and a more suitable technique, which estimates the model in a dynamic setting.

The objective of this paper is twofold as follows: first, it explores the relationship between economic growth and the environment in the context of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in Iran, as a semi-industrialized and largest developing economy in the Middle East. Second, it investigates the effectiveness of government spending on environmental protection.

The paper uses the ecological footprint data and an ARDL model to gauge the income and government spending effects on environmental improvement. This method avoids the problems associated with using the regression including a squared income.

The results find no evidence for a turning point in the income–pollution relationship and no significant impact of government spending on reducing footprint. We conjecture that the structure of the economy and the weak institutional quality may explain the results.

This includes limited time series data on institutional quality indices and their small variations over time.

Creating an environmental fund using the oil windfall and applying environmental tax/subsidies policies will help address increasing environmental challenges in energy-rich developing countries. Education and public awareness about environmental problems and their impacts on the standard of living are also nonexpensive but effective ways to increase citizen's engagement towards improving environment.

The EKC may take different forms in various countries depending on their economic structure and institution qualities.

The paper uses the ARDL method rather than a commonly used regression with a squared income to estimate the EKC. It also uses ecological footprint as a measure of environmental damage. Exploring government effectiveness in managing public good is also novel in the empirical literature.