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Financial dollarisation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is most persistent compared to other regions of the world. The purpose of this paper is to complement the existing scant literature on dollarisation in Africa by assessing the role of information sharing offices (public credit registries and private credit bureaus) on financial dollarisation in 25 SSA countries for the period 2001-2012.

The empirical evidence is based on ordinary least squares and generalised method of moments (GMM).

The findings show that information sharing offices (which are designed to reduce information asymmetry) in the banking industry are a deterrent to dollarisation. The underpinning assumption that financial development reduces financial dollarisation is confirmed.

There is scant literature on the relevance of information sharing offices in development outcomes in Africa. While the establishment of these offices in most countries in the continent began in 2004, scholarship on the importance of these offices in financial development is sparse.

The study seeks to examine the role of financial development (FD) in the Feldstein–Horioka (FH) puzzle. The novelty of this study is based on the fact that the measures of FD are expanded to account for the qualitative nature of the financial sector (“better finance”).

The study used annual dataset for 37 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for the period 1999 through 2010 and relied on the system generalised method of moments (GMM) technique, which takes accounts of endogeneity-related issues.

The estimated FH coefficients ranged between 0.419 and 0.720. The qualitative measures of FD have higher FH coefficient relative to the traditional or quantitative measure of FD (“more finance”). Hence, improvement in both the quantity and quality of the financial sector might be helpful in the mobilization, distribution and utilization of savings for investment purposes within these economies. The high FH coefficients obtained suggest that the FH puzzle does not hold in the SSA region.

Policymakers should formulate and design policies that would seek to ensure the development of the financial sector both in terms of quantity and quality. While taking this into consideration, special attention should be devoted to the qualitative measure of finance.

The study extends the work of Adeniyi and Egwaikhide (2013) by providing different and, possibly better proxies for FD to capture the efficiency and the qualitative nature of the financial system. This crux of the study serves as the value addition to the literature, as no other study the authors are aware of, has considered the importance of “better finance” indicators in the saving – investment nexus investigation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of industrialization and urbanization on CO₂ emissions in 20 African countries for the period 1980 to 2013.

In order to correct for cross-sectional dependence, this study adopts the use of pooled mean group. Also, the study contributes to the literature by estimating the direct, indirect and total effects of industrialization and urbanization on carbon emission.

The results show that industrialization and urbanization directly increase environmental degradation. Interestingly, industrialization and urbanization were also found to reduce environmental degradation through their indirect effects on per capita income. In general, the authors conclude that the indirect effect of industrialization will overcrowd the direct effect, and this will lead to a decline in the overall effect of industrialization on carbon emission. Also, the positive direct effect of urbanization outweighs the negative indirect effect, thus the overall effect of urbanization will endanger carbon emission in the long run.

The existing studies on emission, industrialization and urbanization have typically been biased toward Africa. This present study filled this gap. The choice of African countries is based on the notion that the continent is desirous of expanding her industrialization level. This has coincidentally led to the increase in urbanization growth rate as well as income level of former rural dwellers. The second contribution of this study is the “effects decomposition” into direct, indirect and total effects. This is to reveal some inherent information that might be missing.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of institutions in the financial development-output growth volatility nexus. It provides new channels through which financial development can dampen the output growth volatilities of the countries under investigation.

A comprehensive data set for 71 countries covering the period from 1996 to 2012 and the System GMM approach were used. The choice of the methodology is to deal with endogeneity issues such as measurement errors, reverse causality among other issues.

A number of findings were emanated from the empirical analysis. First, the estimates provided evidence of the volatility-reducing effect of financial development. Second, institutions do not have the same reducing influence on output growth volatility. Third, the interaction of financial development and institutions showed that the output volatility reduction arising from financial development is enhanced in the presence of improved institutions.

The policy implications derived from this study are in twofolds: first, it is important for policymakers to formulate policies that would ensure and enhance the development of the financial sectors, since its importance in minimizing output volatility has been established. Second, institutional quality should be developed so as to further enhance the growth volatility-reducing influence of financial development. Particularly, institutions should be improved along the multiple dimensions captured in the analysis.

To the best knowledge, the novelty of this study to the literature is the introduction of institutions, which is hypothesized to increase the dampening effects of financial development in output growth volatility.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the role of institutions on the remittances–output growth volatility relationship.

The data set of this paper is limited to 71 remittances recipient countries. In an attempt to deal with endogeneity issues, the paper adopts the use of system generalised method of moment (GMM).

First, in consonance with earlier studies, the growth volatility reducing influence of remittances flows was established. Second, unlike the extant literature, the growth volatility reduction potential of remittances was found to be more pronounced in the presence of well-functioning institutions. Finally, the interaction of remittances with our six institutional quality measures showed that growth volatility reduced considerably with better institutions.

In terms of policy, remittances recipient countries need to simultaneously pursue economic and governance reforms. Both of these will enhance the counter-cyclicality of remittances and possibly other capital flows.

Substantial efforts have been devoted to investigating the impact of remittances on output growth volatility, while very little research attention has been devoted to analysing the impact of institutions on the remittances–output growth volatility nexus.

This chapter delves into the complex yet fascinating arena of Islamic finance, looking at its historical foundations and dealing with today’s complexities. There is a huge struggle in Islamic economics in meeting the contemporary needs while practising moderate framework, observing the difference between strictly abiding by the rules and achieving the ethical goals beyond the profit. It urges for a value-driven approach within institutions and the implementation of the zakat, sadaqah and waqf systems to fill the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) financing gap. Seizing the opportunities, the chapter promotes the necessity of Islamic fiqh experts with current Shari’ah body of knowledge in considering the ethical and legal aspects alongside fintech. This is essentially to ensure that the implementation of Islamic finance enables the sustainable economic development. Looking toward the Industry 5.0, it expects a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) with Islamic finance and identifies Islamic social finance as a powerful socially-driven tool. In the end, the chapter lays out Islamic finance as the powerful tool to work together to achieve an ethical, equitable, and sustainable financial system.

This paper evaluates the impact of socio and demographic factors on the multidimensional poverty of smallholder arable crop farming households in Nigeria.

Data were drawn from the second wave of the LSMS-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture General Household Survey Panel 2012/2013. The methods adopted in analysing the data were descriptive statistics, Alkire and Foster Method (AFM) and logit regression model.

The result shows that 84.34% of the households were headed by a male while 80.26% of the respondents were married with a mean household size of seven persons. The multidimensional poverty of arable crop farm households in Nigeria is 0.60, while the adjusted headcount ratio (MPI) is 0.27, with an average intensity of 0.45. We found that deprivation in the dimension of living standard accounted for 45.5% of the overall multidimensional poverty index (MPI). The result of the logistic regression indicates that household location, gender, household size and non-farm income are negatively correlated to poverty. The factors that increase poverty among households are the age of the household head and access to extension services.

The study presents an alternative means of assessing poverty among smallholder arable crop farming households in Nigeria. This study recommends that policymakers should focus more on improving the living standard of arable crop farming households to reduce poverty in rural areas. Similarly, concerted efforts should be made towards providing adequate health care and improved sanitation, supply of electricity and educational training that goes beyond primary education for farming household members.

The purpose of this paper is to link subjective data obtained from a questionnaire survey with blood donation behavioral data, constructs a conceptual model of the factors that influence repeated blood donation behavior, and explores the mechanisms and degrees of influence of the value and cost elements of blood donors on repeated blood donation behavior.

First, this study constructs a conceptual model of the factors that affect repeated blood donation based on delivered value theory. Second, this paper is driven by subjective data obtained from a questionnaire and big data on blood donation behavior; the use of multisource data can help us understand repeated blood donation behavior from a broader perspective. Through data association and systematic research, it is possible to accurately explore the mechanisms through which various factors affect repeated blood donation behavior.

The results show that among the value elements, personnel value (PV), image value and blood donation value affect blood donation behavior in decreasing order. The change in PV per unit directly caused a 0.471-unit change in satisfaction, which indirectly caused a 0.098-unit change in donation behavior. Among the cost elements of blood donors, only the impact of time cost (TC) on repeated blood donation behavior was significant, and a change of one unit in TC caused a change in repeated blood donation behavior of −0.035 units. In addition, this paper groups subjects according to gender, education and age and explores the differences in the value and cost factors of different groups. Finally, based on the research results, the authors propose corresponding policy recommendations.

First, the authors expand the application field of the delivered value theory, and provide a new perspective for studying repeated blood donation. Second, through questionnaire data and blood donation behavior data, the authors comprehensively explore the factors that influence repeated blood donation behavior.

Increasing humanitarian disasters and the need for financial support – specifically within the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries – has forced global humanitarian agencies to consider alternative funding sources. The victims of disaster and those disadvantaged that remain below the poverty line in much of the OIC countries remain concerned about the source of the funding they receive, based on their beliefs. Furthermore, institutions responsible for managing the funding for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets in their respective countries have also been considering alternative funding. The World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) suggest that the Islamic social finance is largely untapped, with significant potentials for more effective collection and distribution of compulsory alms called zakah and endowments known as waqf within the OIC countries. This chapter assesses the current challenges and opportunities for the Islamic social finance and covers some of the successful cases of the Islamic social finance deployment. The authors review approaches where world-renowned institutions have applied interest-free loans for poverty reduction, banking products for agricultural social financing, the utilization of cross-border social funding for socio-economic development and property management using social finance principles. The authors also assess capital market instruments integrated with the Islamic social finance for managing SDG funding gaps.