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This study aims to provide an empirical investigation into rising capital flight and the role of institutional quality to mitigate its effect on the real sector in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

The study uses the system generalized method of moments and uses data spanning from 1989 to 2020 from 26 SSA countries.

The findings show that capital flight has no direct impact on the real sector while institutional quality adversely impacted the agricultural and industrial sectors. The study also found that institutional quality is unable to mitigate the effect of capital flight on the industrial sector.

This study investigates if institutional quality mitigates the impact of capital flight on the real sector proxied by industrial value-added and agriculture value-added.

By discussing the spatial spillover effect and regional heterogeneity of digital economy and green agricultural development level, this paper aims to provide countermeasures and suggestions for the better development of green agriculture in the contemporary era when digital economy is universally developed and at the same time provide development suggestions suitable for green agriculture's development characteristics and initial conditions for different regions.

This paper discusses the theoretical foundation of the digital economy and green agriculture development and utilizes panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2018. By employing the Super-Efficiency Slack-based Measure and Malmquist-Luenberger (SBM-ML) model based on unexpected output to measure the total factor productivity of green agriculture and employing the spatial panel Durbin model to empirically test the spatiotemporal effects of the digital economy on green agriculture development from both temporal and spatial dimensions. Finally, the model is tested for robustness as well as heterogeneity.

The research findings are as follows: First, from the perspective of time effect, digital economy has a continuous driving effect on the development of green agriculture and with the passage of time, this effect becomes more and more prominent; second, from the perspective of spatial effect, digital economy has a significant positive impact on the development of local green agriculture, while digital economy has a significant negative impact on the development of surrounding green agriculture. Finally, the impact of digital economy on the development of green agriculture shows significant differences in different dimensions and regions.

As an important driver of economic growth, the digital economy has injected new impetus into agricultural and rural development. Along with the intensifying environmental pollution problems, how to influence the green development of agriculture through the digital economy is a proposition worthy of attention nowadays. This paper analyzes the relationship between the digital economy and agricultural green development in multiple dimensions by exploring the temporal and spatial spillover effects of the digital economy on agricultural green development, as well as the heterogeneity in different dimensions and in different regions and derives policy insights accordingly in order to improve relevant policies.

This study aims to examine the impact of renewable energy consumption on agricultural productivity while accounting for the effect of financial inclusion and foreign direct investment in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) countries during 2000–2020.

The study has used the latest data from World Bank and International Monetary Fund databases. The dependent variable in the study is agricultural productivity. Renewable energy consumption, carbon emissions, financial inclusion and foreign direct investment are independent variables. Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach was used to examine the short-run and long-run impact of renewable energy consumption, carbon emissions, foreign direct investment and financial inclusion on agricultural productivity.

The findings imply that consumption of renewable energy, carbon emissions and foreign direct investment have a positive impact on agricultural productivity while financial inclusion in terms of access does not seem to have any significant impact on agricultural productivity. Providing farmers, access to financial services can be beneficial, but its usage holds more importance in impacting rural outcomes. The problem lies in the fact that there is still a gap between access and usage of financial services.

Policymakers should encourage the increase in the usage of renewable energy and become less reliant on non-renewable energy sources which will eventually help in tackling the problems associated with climate change as well as enhance agricultural productivity.

Most of the earlier studies were based on tabular analysis without any empirical base to establish the causal relationship between determinants of agricultural productivity and renewable energy consumption. These studies were also limited to a few regions. The study is one of its kind in exploring the severity of various factors that determine agricultural productivity in the context of emerging economies like BRICS while accounting for the effect of financial inclusion and foreign direct investment.

This study aims to explore the latent potential of alternative-responsible tourism and ecotourism leadership in sustainable tourism and the sustenance of rural communities in Musina Municipality in Limpopo Province, South Africa. It also sought to compare this potential with other African pastoral areas and to integrate it with various rural sites elsewhere abroad.

Narrative literature, document reviews, interviews and focus group discussions were used to garner relevant data and were analyzed through cross-tabulation analysis and manually. On this account, probable climate change-bound environmental consequences, rural, tourism, farming and ecological administration issues came to the forefront.

The examination correlates the potential position of proper ecotourism exercises and responsible tourism as an agreeable path to promote sustainability in rural localities. Subsequently, upon apparent countryside products, ecotourism and farming exercises glimpsed in the study area, environmental degradation poses a conceivable hazard to natural resource governance. Hereafter, it aggravates the possibilities for climate change effects and poor subsistence.

The rich biodiversity in the study area provides platforms for sustainable rural tourism enterprises and addresses any pertinent concerns. Thus, the study has manifested a demand for a creative tourism approach and innovations against environmental change outcomes and to capacitate Musina Municipality residents and probably others elsewhere on the continent to engage in ethical tourism initiatives and sustainable livelihoods.

With heterogeneous findings dominating the growth and natural resources relations, there is a need to explain the variances in Africa's growth process as induced by robust measures of factor endowments. This study used a comprehensive set of data from the updated database of the World Bank to capture the heterogeneous dimensions of natural resource endowments on growth with a particular focus on establishing complementary evidence on the resource curse hypothesis in energy and environmental economics literature in Africa. These comprehensive data on oil rent, coal rent and forest rent could provide new and insightful evidence on obscure relations on the subject matter.

This paper considers the panel vector error correction model (PVECM) procedure to explain changes in economic growth outcomes as induced by oil rent, coal rent and forest rent. The consideration of the PVECM was premised on the panel unit root process that returns series that were cointegrated at the first-order differentials.

The paper found positive relations between oil rent, coal rent and economic development in Africa. Forest rent, on the other hand, is inversely related to economic growth in Africa. Trade and human capital are positively related to economic growth in Africa, while population growth is negatively associated with economic growth in Africa.

Short-run policies should be tailored towards the stability of fiscal expenditure such that the objective of fiscal policy, which is to maintain the condition of full employment and economic stability and stabilise the rate of growth, can be optimised and sustained. By this, the resource curse will be averted and productive capacity will increase, leading to sustainable growth and development in Africa, where conditions for growth and development remain inadequately met.

The originality of this paper can be viewed from the strength of its arguments and methods adopted to address the questions raised in this paper. This study further illuminated age-long obscure relations in the literature of natural resource endowment and economic growth by taking a disaggregated approach to the component-by-component analysis of natural resources factors (the oil rent, coal rent and forest rent) and their corresponding influence on economic growth in Africa. This pattern remains underexplored mainly in previous literature on the subject. Many African countries are blessed with an abundance of these different natural resources in varying proportions. The misuse and mismanagement of these resources along various dimensions have been the core of the inclination towards the resource curse hypothesis in Africa. Knowing how growth conditions respond to changes in the depth of forest resources, oil resources and coal resources could be useful pointers in Africa's overall energy use and management. This study contributed to the literature on natural resource-induced growth dynamics by offering a generalisable conclusion as to why natural resource-abundance economies are prone to poor economic performance. This study further asks if mineral deposits are a source or reflection of ill growth and underdevelopment in African countries.

This study aims to examine the effect of structural transformation on poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries with a higher share of services as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). The study specifically focuses on the value-added share as a percentage of GDP in the agricultural, manufacturing, industrial, and service sectors using time series data from 1988 to 2019.

The study utilizes the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) bound test framework for estimation, based on the conclusions drawn from the augmented Dickey-Fuller and Phillips–Perron unit root tests, which provide evidence of a mixed order of integration.

The result reveals that agriculture value-added (AVA), manufacturing value-added (MVA), industrial value-added (IVA), and services value-added (SVA) have a positive and significant impact on poverty alleviation in both the short and long run. However, the agriculture sector is found to be more effective in reducing poverty compared to the other sectors examined in this study. Additionally, this study challenges the notion that SSA countries have undergone an immature structural transformation. Instead, it reveals a pattern of stagnant structural transformation, as indicated by the lack of growth in the industrial and manufacturing value-added shares of GDP.

To enhance productivity and reduce poverty, SSA economies should adopt a development strategy that prioritizes heavy manufacturing and industrial sectors, leading to a transition from the agricultural to the secondary and tertiary sectors.

The study contributes to the emerging literature on structural transformation by investigating which sector is more efficient in reducing poverty in SSA countries, using the value-added share as a percentage of GDP for agricultural, manufacturing, industrial, and service sectors. The study also aims to determine if SSA countries have experienced immature structural transformation due to the growing share in the service sector.

Climate change and its imminent threat to human survival adversely impact the agriculture sector. In an impoverished country like The Gambia, economic costs of climate change are colossal. This study aims to establish a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for The Gambia’s agriculture sector to examine the effects of climate change on crops, livestock and sea-level rise.

This study used a CGE model with other climate change impact models to compute the impacts of climate change on The Gambia’s agriculture sector. The social accounting matrix calibrates the results from the various models, thereby generating the baseline results which exemplify a “steady-state” and policy shock results illustrating the medium- and long-term effects of climate change on the country’s agriculture sector.

The baseline results indicate the status quo showing the neglect of the agriculture sector due to limited investment in the sector. Hence, the sector is the “hardest hit” sector as a result of climate change. When the model factored in climate change in the medium term (2055) and long term (2085), the macroeconomic indicators of gross domestic product, national savings, wages, disposable income and consumer price index deteriorated, elucidating the vulnerability of the economy to climate change. The consumption of groundnuts, cattle and fish will decline by 5%, 5% and 4%, respectively, in the long term. However, the production of all agricultural commodities will decline by an average of 35% for the same period. The results for international trade show that exportation would decline while importation will increase over time. The general price level for agricultural commodities would increase by 3% in 2055 and 5% in 2085. Generally, the results manifest the severity of climate change in the agriculture sector which will have a multiplier effect on the economy. The impact of climate change would result in agriculture and economic decline causing hunger, poverty and human misery.

The caveat of this study revealed the nuances not captured by previous Gambian climate change studies, thus the novelty of the study.

Natural disasters profoundly influence agricultural trade sustainability. This study investigates the effects of natural disasters on agricultural production imports in China within 2002 and 2018. This exploration estimates the mediating role of transportation infrastructure and agriculture value-added and the moderating role of government effectiveness and diplomatic relations.

This investigation uses Probit, Logit, Cloglog and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models.

The results confirm the mediating role of transportation infrastructure and agriculture value-added and the moderating role of government effectiveness and diplomatic relations in China. According to the findings, natural disasters in trading partners heighten the risk to the agricultural imports. This risk raises, if disasters damage overall agricultural yield or transportation infrastructure. Moreover, governments’ effective response or diplomatic ties with China mitigate the risk. Finally, the effect of disasters varies by the developmental status of the country involved, with events in developed nations posing a greater risk to China’s imports than those in developing nations.

China should devise an early warning system to protect its agricultural imports by using advanced technologies such as data analytics, remote sensing and artificial intelligence. In addition, it can leverage this system by improving its collaboration with trading partners, involvement in international forums and agreement for mutual support in crisis.

Polish agriculture is one of the main sectors of the national economy that, under the influence of political transformations and European integration, is subject to measures stimulating its development. The instruments of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have been an important supporting stimulus.

This chapter aims to evaluate the significance of the common agricultural policy to the growth and development of agriculture and to structural transformations therein triggered primarily by the influx of additional CAP funds.

The agricultural sector was examined together with its selected characteristics in the context of CAP instruments' impact after 2004. Data included the streams of funding for Polish agriculture and indicators illustrating changes in structural features, economic performance and productivity of production factors. The indicators included changes in the number, structure and potential of farmsteads, changes in the level of employment in agriculture, this sector's share in total gross value added, profitability of farmsteads, capital expenditure level and changes in labour and land profitability compared with changes in the level of employment and agricultural production intensity. They were calculated based on data from EUROSTAT, Statistics Poland and Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN).

The outcomes confirm that common agricultural policy has contributed to create development processes in Polish agriculture. Changes in the sector affected structural characteristics, production factors productivity and the income of agricultural producers. Since Poland joined the European Union (EU), the percentage of agricultural workers declined by 8.4 p.p. and the number of farms decreased by nearly 30%. These changes were accompanied by a nearly twofold increase in agricultural labour productivity, 50% increase in land productivity and the profitability of land increased by 43%.