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In countries where the electronic levy (e-levy) has been implemented, one question that resonates with the populace is, “how much would you want to pay for e-levy per transaction?” In response, varied perspectives have been shared with no convergence. Against this background, this study seeks to estimate people's willingness to pay (WTP) for electronic transaction levy in Ghana, while analysing the associated determinants.

This study relies on a survey of 2,810 respondents obtained from February 9 to 16, 2022 in Ghana. A multivariate logit model was estimated with its marginal effects. Further, a robustness check was undertaken using the linear probability model to validate the results.

With respect to the sample, the authors find evidence that approximately 46% of the respondents are not willing to pay any amount per transaction for the e-levy. Second, about 21% of the respondents are willing to pay Ghs0.5% as e-levy per transaction. Furthermore, about 10% of the respondents are willing to pay 1% per transaction as e-levy. Those who indicated that they would pay rates above 1% (specifically, 1.50%–1.75%) per transaction are less than 5%. For flat rates, approximately 10% of the respondents were willing to pay Ghs5 per month for all transactions above Ghs100. All others who are interested in other flat rates together are less than 5% of the respondents. The key statistically significant determinants of the probability that an individual would be willing to pay for the e-levy are also provided. This study recommends a comprehensive dialogue between the government and all stakeholders to reach a reasonable conclusion on an acceptable e-levy rate and by extension, implementation strategies.

To the best of the researchers' knowledge, this is the first empirical study that estimates individuals' willingness to pay for e-levy on electronic transactions in a developing country.

In this study, the authors investigate Ghana's Free Senior High School policy as an all-inclusive development policy that drives voting behaviour.

Using the snowball sampling technique and a statistically representative sample size of 413 eligible voters from Ghana, the authors estimate a multinomial logistic regression with its marginal effects.

The results show that as the number of Free Senior High School beneficiaries per household increases, the more the voters in that household are likely to vote for the policy implementor. Similarly, voters who believe that the Free Senior High School policy has had an impact on students' performance are more likely to vote for the policy implementor. By implication, an all-inclusive development policy such as the Free Senior High School educational policy has the probability of influencing voting behaviour in favour of the policy implementor.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the nexus between an all-inclusive Free Senior High School educational policy and voting behaviour in Ghana.

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.

Lockdowns are generally characterised by financial depletion, loneliness, stress, depression, loss of jobs and businesses, among others. The effect of the recent lockdown in Ghana as a result of COVID-19 pandemic has not been different. The primary question this study seeks to answer is: are lockdowns only characterised by negativity, or could there be a positive side that has not yet been harnessed?

To answer this question, the authors rely on a dataset of 879 observations obtained through an online survey administered from 25 April to 3 May 2020. Using a regression approach, the authors applied an ordered probit econometric technique with its associated predicted margins.

The authors show evidence that in the midst of the negativity surrounding the lockdown, social connectedness is evident, especially in relatively less busy cities. The authors recommend that instead of losing oneself through social isolation and loneliness during lockdowns, people should use lockdowns as an opportunity to build and exhibit social capital and harness the opportunities associated with it. The authors also recommend that during lockdowns, channels of social connectedness should be made easily accessible and cheaper through a well-targeted government subsidy programme for the poor.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is a novel study that provides the first empirical evidence on the relationship between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic lockdown and social connectedness.

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.

In the wake of climate change and its associated impact on firms' performance, this paper attempts to provide a piece of empirical evidence in support of the effect of weather conditions on the stock market performance.

Monthly time-series dataset and the fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) semi-parametric econometric technique are used to establish the effect of weather variables on stock market return.

This study finds that temperature and wind speed have a negative and statistically significant relationship with stock market performance. Likewise, humidity exhibits a negative relationship with stock market performance, albeit insignificant. The relevant stock market and macroeconomic control variables are statistically significant in addition to exhibiting their expected signs. The findings lend support to advocates of behavioural factors inclusion in asset pricing and decision-making.

For policy purposes, the authors recommend that traders, investors and stock exchange managers must take into consideration different weather conditions as they influence investors' behaviour, investment decisions, and consequently, the stock market performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study provides the first empirical evidence of the nexus between disaggregated weather measures and stock market performance in Ghana. This study uses monthly data (which are very rare in the literature, especially for developing country studies) to provide empirical evidence that weather influences stock market performance.

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 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

African countries are generally fragile. This and other related characteristics affect the potential for growth and development. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the effect of FDI on economic growth is contingent on a financial system that accounts for financial market fragility. An important point of departure from earlier studies is the adoption of a new measure of financial market fragility.

Given the uniqueness of the data set, the study uses a panel data and estimates an econometric model using an instrumental variable approach. For robustness purposes, a pooled ordinary least square is also estimated.

The study provides evidence that if the financial market is fragile as in the case of Africa, FDI inflows may have a marginally significant positive impact on economic growth. The findings suggest that fragility in the financial market is a key absorptive capacity and cannot be trivialised when exploring FDI–growth nexus in Africa.

The uniqueness of the data set limited the time period of the study. Nonetheless, the findings are still crucial to policy makers in Africa and other developing countries with similar characteristics.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in Africa to investigate the FDI–growth nexus which accounts for financial market fragility.

The sharp rise in non-performing loans (NPLs) with its associated effect on financial institutions in Ghana has become very alarming. This has led to the collapse of distressed institutions and associated repercussions such as loss of private savings, investments, businesses and livelihoods. The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis that the monetary policy rate can be used to influence NPLs in Ghana.

Using quarterly data spanning from 2000 to 2016, the authors used the autoregressive distributed lag econometric approach to estimate the effect of monetary policy on the percentage growth of NPLs in Ghana. The results are presented for both short-run and long-run periods.

In the short run, the authors find evidence of no statistically significant effect of monetary policy on the percentage growth of NPLs. However, in the long run, the authors find a statistically significant effect of monetary policy on the percentage growth of NPLs.

The authors recommend that policymakers should focus on building a strong financial environment, so that monetary policy can be used to influence the commercial bank’s interest rate. In effect, this will help reduce the growth of NPLs, reduce risk and attract competitors into the financial market, increase asset base, increase credit to support viable ventures and subsequently boost economic growth in Ghana.

The paper shows its value by using quarterly data whereas most literature have considered annual data. Also, the paper includes a policy variable measured by the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) as the key variable of interest which is normally not the case with most studies.