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The purpose of this paper is to assess the importance of credit access in modulating governance for gender-inclusive education in 42 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with data spanning the period 2004–2014.

The generalized method of moments is used as empirical strategy.

The following findings are established: First, credit access modulates government effectiveness and the rule of law to induce positive net effects on inclusive “primary and secondary education.” Second, credit access also moderates political stability and the rule of law for overall net positive effects on inclusive secondary education. Third, credit access complements government effectiveness to engender an overall positive impact on inclusive tertiary education.

Policy implications are discussed with emphasis on sustainable development goals.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the correlations between mobile banking and inclusive development (poverty and inequality) in 93 developing countries for the year 2011.

Mobile banking entails the following: “mobile phones used to pay bills” and “mobile phones used to receive/send money”, while the modifying policy indicator includes the human development index (HDI). The data are decomposed into seven sub-panels based on two fundamental characteristics: regions (Latin America, Asia and the Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, and Middle East and North Africa) and income levels (upper middle income, lower middle income and low income).

The results show that at certain thresholds of the HDI, mobile banking is positively linked to inclusive development. The following specific findings are established. First, the increased use of mobile phones to pay bills is negatively correlated with: poverty in lower-middle-income countries (LMIC), upper-middle-income countries (UMIC) and Latin American (LA) countries, respectively, at HDI thresholds of 0.725, 0.727 and 0.778 and inequality in UMIC and LA with HDI thresholds of, respectively, 0.646 and 0.761. Second, the increased use of mobile phones to send/receive money is negatively correlated with: poverty in LMIC, UMIC and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries with corresponding HDI thresholds of 0.631, 0.750 and 0.750 and inequality in UMIC, CEE and LA at HDI thresholds of 0.665, 0.736 and 0.726, respectively.

The findings are discussed in the light of current policy challenges in the transition from the UN’s Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable Development Goals.

The authors have exploited the only macroeconomic data on mobile banking currently available.

This study aims to analyse the impact of digital divide (DD) on income inequality in sub-Saharan Africa over the period 2004–2016.

In applying a finite mixture model (FMM) to a sample of 35 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, this study posits that DD affects income inequality differently.

The findings show that the effect of DD on income inequality varies across two distinct groups of countries, which differ according to their level of globalization. In addition, the study shows that most globalized countries are more inclined to be in the group where the effect of DD on income inequality is negative. The results are consistent with several robustness checks, including alternative measures of income inequality and additional control variables.

This study complements that extant literature by assessing linkages among the DD, globalization and income inequality in sub-Saharan African countries contingent on cross-country heterogeneity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how information and communication technology (ICT) influences openness to improve the conditions of doing business in sub-Saharan Africa.

The data were collected for the period 2000-2012. ICT is proxied with internet and mobile phone penetration rates whereas openness is measured in terms of financial and trade globalisation. Ten indicators of doing business are used, namely: cost of business start-up procedures; procedure to enforce a contract; start-up procedures to register a business; time required to build a warehouse; time required to enforce a contract; time required to register a property; time required to start a business; time to export; time to prepare and pay taxes; and time to resolve an insolvency. The empirical evidence is based on generalised method of moments with forward orthogonal deviations.

While the authors find substantial evidence that ICT complements openness to improve conditions for entrepreneurship, the effects are contingent on the dynamics of openness, ICT and entrepreneurship. Theoretical and practical policy implications are discussed.

The inquiry is based on two contemporary development concerns: the need for policy to leverage on the ICT penetration potential in the sub-region and the relevance of entrepreneurship in addressing associated issues of population growth such as unemployment.

This study aims to assess the effect of globalisation on governance in 51 African countries for the period 1996-2011.

Ten bundled and unbundled governance indicators and four globalisation variables are used. The empirical evidence is based on Generalised Method of Moments.

Firstly, on political governance, while only social globalisation improves political stability, only economic globalisation does not increase voice and accountability and political governance. Secondly, with regard to economic governance: only economic globalisation significantly promotes regulation quality; social globalisation and general globalisation significantly advance government effectiveness; and economic globalisation and general globalisation significantly promote economic governance. Thirdly, with respect to institutional governance, while only social globalisation improves corruption-control, the effects of globalisation dynamics on the rule of law and institutional governance are not significant. Fourthly, the impacts of social globalisation and general globalisation are positive on general governance.

It follows that political governance is driven by voice and accountability compared to political stability; economic governance is promoted by both regulation quality and government effectiveness from specific globalisation angles; and globalisation does not improve institutional governance for the most part.

Governance variables are bundled and unbundled to reflect evolving conceptions and definitions of governance. Theoretical contributions and policy implications are discussed.

This paper aims to analyse the extent to which households are deprived (or otherwise) of clean energy sources in Ghana.

It engages the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey data. Three different energy deprivation indicators were estimated: cooking fuel deprivation, lighting deprivation and indoor air pollution. The empirical evidence is based on logit regressions that explain whether households are deprived or not.

The results show that energy deprivation or access is contingent on the area of residence. Energy access and deprivation in Ghana show some regional disparities, even though across every region, the majority of households use three fuel types: liquefied petroleum gas, charcoal and wood cut. Increases in wealth and education lead to reduction in the likelihood of being energy deprived. Thus, efforts should be geared towards policies that will ensure households having access to clean fuels to reduce the attendant deprivations and corresponding effects of using dangerous or dirty fuels.

This study complements the extant literature by analysing the extent to which households are deprived (or otherwise) of clean energy sources in Ghana.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the multinational oil companies (MOCs) corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in Nigeria. Its special focus is to investigate the impact of the global memorandum of understanding (GMoU) on reducing incidents of electoral violence in oil-producing communities.

This paper adopts a survey technique, aimed at gathering information from a representative sample of the population, as it is essentially cross-sectional, describing and interpreting the current situation. A total of 1,200 households were sampled across the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

The results from the use of a combined propensity score matching and logit model indicate that the GMoU model made a significant impact in deterring occurrences of electoral violence when interventions on cluster development boards are designed to mitigate the intricate of political clashes in the region.

This implies that CSR interventions of MOCs play a vital role in reducing incidents of electoral violence in Nigeria’s oil producing region.

Reducing the increasing electoral violence in the oil host communities, will, in turn, create an enabling environment for more extensive and responsible business of Multinational Corporation in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper extends and contributes to the literature on CSR initiatives of multinational enterprises in developing countries and the rationale for demands for social projects by host communities. It concludes that business has an obligation to help in solving problems of public concern.

This paper aims to assess dynamics of the knowledge economy (KE)–finance nexus using the four variables identified under the World Bank’s (WB’s) Knowledge Economy Index (KEI) and seven financial intermediary dynamics of depth, efficiency, activity and size.

Principal component analysis is used to reduce the dimensions of KE components before dynamic panel generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation techniques are employed to examine the nexus.

Four main findings are established. First, education improves financial depth and financial efficiency but mitigates financial size. Second, apart from a thin exception (trade’s incidence on money supply), economic incentives (credit facilities and trade) are not consistently favorable to financial development. Third, information and communications technology improves only financial size and has a negative effect on other financial dynamics. Finally, proxies for innovation (journals and foreign direct investment [FDI]) have a positive effect on financial activity; journals (FDI) have (has) a negative (positive) effect on liquid liabilities, and journals and FDI both have negative incidences on money supply and banking system efficiency, respectively.

As a policy implication, the KE–finance nexus is a complex and multidimensional relationship. Hence, blind and blanket policy formulation to achieve positive linkages may not be successful unless policy-making strategy is contingent on the prevailing “KE-specific component” trends and dynamics of financial development. Policy makers should improve the economic incentive dimension of KE that, overwhelmingly and consistently, deters financial development, owing to surplus liquidity issues.

As far as we have reviewed, this is the first paper to examine the KE–finance nexus with the plethora of KE dimensions defined by the WB’s KEI and all the dynamics identified by the Financial Development and Structure Database.

This study investigates how education, scientific output, and the internet complement mobile phone penetration to affect technology commodity exports in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2000–2012. The empirical evidence is based on a generalized method of moments. The following main findings are established. The internet complements the mobile phone to boost technology goods exports and technology service exports. In addition, positive marginal effects are apparent in the roles of educational quality and scientific output on technology goods exports and technology service exports, respectively, while negative marginal impacts are apparent in the roles of scientific output and educational quality on technology goods exports and technology service exports, respectively. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

This paper aims to assess how entrepreneurship affects knowledge economy (KE) in Africa.

Entrepreneurship is measured by indicators of starting, doing and ending business. The four dimensions of the World Bank’s index of KE are used. Instrumental variable panel-fixed effects are applied on a sample of 53 African countries for the period of 1996-2010.

The following are some of the findings. First, creating an enabling environment for starting business can substantially boost most dimensions of KE. Second, doing business through mechanisms of trade globalization has positive effects from sectors that are not information and communication technology (ICT) and high-tech oriented. Third, the time required to end business has negative effects on KE.

The findings confirm the narrative that the technology in African countries at the moment may be more imitative and adaptive for reverse engineering in ICTs and high-tech products. Given the massive consumption of ICT and high-tech commodities in Africa, the continent has to start thinking of how to participate in the global value chain of producing what it consumes.

This paper has a twofold motivation. First, given the ambitions of African countries of moving towards knowledge-based economies, the line of inquiry is timely. Second, investigating the nexus may have substantial poverty mitigation and sustainable development implications. These entail, inter alia, the development of technology with value-added services; enhancement of existing agricultural practices; promotion of conditions that are essential for competitiveness; and adjustment to globalization challenges.