Search results

This study explored the tax evasion and corruption–economic development nexus in Ghana and the moderating role of institutional quality in this relationship.

To achieve this objective, this study employed the structural equation modelling (SEM) strategy and maximum likelihood (ML) estimation method on selected quarterised data from 1996 to 2020.

The study found that tax evasion has a positive impact on GDP per capita and urbanisation but a negative impact on the Economic Freedom of the World Index (EFWI). The study revealed that corruption has a positive relationship with GDP per capita but relates with EFWI inversely. Finally, the study found that institutional quality moderates the nexus between tax evasion and corruption and economic development.

The findings imply that the quality of state institutions has a significant impact on the government's ability to control tax evasion and corruption in order to drive economic development.

One novelty of the study is the examination of the combined effects of tax evasion and corruption as exogenous variables in a single econometric model. Again, to moderate the multivariate relationships of the study, the principal component analysis (PCA) was used to create an institutional quality index. The study recommends that policymakers implement comprehensive tax evasion and corruption reduction strategies simultaneously in order to increase tax revenues for economic development and SDGs achievement.

Debt sustainability and the growing level of external debt in sub-Saharan African (SSA) continue to be significant research priorities. This study aims to examine the corruption-external debt nexus in SSA economies and whether different levels of corruption better explain this relationship.

The panel quantile regression approach was applied to account for the heterogeneous effect of the exogenous variables on external debts. The research covers 30 years of panel data from 30 selected SSA economies for the period spanning from 2000 to 2021.

The empirical findings of the regression analysis demonstrate the heterogeneous influences of the exogenous variables on external debt. While there was a positive impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on external debts, corruption established a negative relationship with external debt from the 10th to the 80th quantile. The findings showed a positive link between trade openness and external debt, while they also showed a negative relationship between gross fixed capital formation and external debt.

It is implied that corruption “sands the wheels” of external debts in the selected SSA countries. Therefore, the amount of external debt that flows into SSA is inversely correlated with corruption activity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to use panel quantile regression to analyze how corruption affects debt dynamics across different levels of debt, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of how corruption affects debt dynamics. Based on the findings of this study, SSA countries should create enabling environments to attract FDI inflows and to continue to drive domestic revenue mobilization and capital so as to be less dependent on external debts.

This study aims to examine the effect of corruption on the economic growth of Ghana and to establish the strength of relationships among corrupting activities.

The research used structural equation modelling on selected data from the World Economic Forum executive opinion survey on corrupting activities and data on economic growth measures from the world development indicators to achieve the research objectives.

The results show that all the observed corrupting activities (except diversion of public funds) adversely influence selected economic growth indicators. The study concludes that corrupting activities, independently and mutually impede Ghana’s economic growth.

The research is limited by the availability of data, hence, quarterised data on selected variables from 2008 to 2017 were examined.

The results suggest that corruption encapsulates all the seven activities of corruption to one degree or another, which are economic growth hampering.

The study extends the corruption-economic growth nexus literature by incorporating several corrupting activities from multiple sectors/areas as follows: the government and politicians, private businesses, judiciary and citizens into a single model to test how these independently and mutually impede economic growth. By identifying and using specific corrupting activities from distinct and diverse sectors/areas to capture both the supply side and demand side of corruption and the private and public sectors, a better comprehension of the corruption-economic growth nexus is attained. This may aid emerging economies and anti-corruption agencies in drafting specific and targeted corruption reduction policies/programmes to minimise poverty and raise living standards to aid the realisation of sustainable development goals.

Most emerging economies have made conscious efforts through policy initiatives to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). However, a significant obstacle to FDI inflow has been the prevalence of corruption in the host country. This study, therefore, aims to examine whether there is an optimum corruption value that results in threshold effects of corruption on FDI.

To achieve this objective, this study used Hansen’s (1999) panel threshold regression (PTR) model by using a panel data of 30 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 2000 to 2021.

This study finds that the nexus between corruption and FDI has a single threshold effect, with a 5.37% optimum corruption threshold value. At this threshold value, corruption affects FDI negatively. Any corruption value that is below the threshold value also elicits a negative corruption–FDI relationship. Despite having a negative relationship when the corruption value is above the optimum corruption threshold, it is not statistically significant.

The implication of the results is that it is deleterious to use corrupt practices to draw FDI to SSA nations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first in the corruption–FDI nexus literature to use Hansen’s PTR model to estimate an optimal corruption threshold. The authors recommend that policymakers in the selected SSA countries reconsider the use of corruption to attract FDI because there is an optimal corruption threshold that could impact FDI in the host country.

Some African policymakers have turned their attention towards electronic transaction levy (e-levy) to maximise tax revenues in recent years due to the inability to meet revenue targets. However, some argue that the implementation of an e-levy will increase the tax burden (TB) and the currency outside banks (COB). Primarily, this paper examined the effects of the TB and COB on economic development as well as the impact of institutional quality on moderating the nexus.

This paper used structural equation modelling (SEM) and maximum likelihood (ML) estimation techniques on quarterised data from 1996 to 2020.

The results show that the TB negatively impacts gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and urbanisation but positively affects the Economic Freedom of the World Index (EFWI). The COB impacts EFWI, GDP per capita and urbanisation positively. Institutional quality moderates the TB and the COB, establishing positive relationships with the economic development indicators.

The findings strongly imply that the arguments that TB and COB are catalysts for tax evasion and corruption lack substantial empirical evidence.

The examination of the econometric impact of the COB on economic development is one of the first studies in the field. The paper recommends that to drive economic development and accelerate sustainable development goals (SDGs) achievement, tax revenues should be channelled into the productive sectors of the Ghanaian economy.

This study aims to assess customers’ awareness and level of knowledge on electronic banking fraud.

A well-structured interviewer-assisted questionnaire was used to collect data from 400 clients of a case study bank. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Kendall’s coefficient of concordance (W) statistic was also estimated to track and rank the fraudulent activities identified by the respondents with respect to electronic banking.

This study found that respondents were aware of most of the specific forms of electronic banking fraud. Firstly, automated teller machinfraud is the most common scam for which customers are aware of. Secondly, institutional factors such as lack of monitoring and education of clients are major factors which expose the bank and clients to fraudulent electronic banking acts. Thirdly, the most effective action that can be taken to prevent fraud in the bank is increased security and personal identification number (PIN) protection education.

This study focusses on a universal bank and uses data from customers of only one branch of the bank to achieve the research objectives.

One uniqueness of this paper is in the adoption of Kendall’s coefficient of concordance (W) statistic to track and rank fraudulent banking activities. The findings will allow financial institutions to know the forms of current and innovative electronic banking fraudulent activities that customers are aware of. It will also enable the banks to find ways to inform their clients about emerging electronic banking fraudulent activities to prevent them from falling victims.

The purpose of this study is to examine the corruption-tax evasion nexus and to establish the strength of relationships among corrupting activities.

The research applied structural equation modelling on selected data from the World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey on corruption activities and data on tax evasion triggering factors from the World Development Indicators and the Bank of Ghana to test two hypotheses.

The test of the first hypothesis suggests that corrupting activities significantly cause tax-evading activities in Ghana; hence, there is at least one corrupting activity triggering tax evasion. Testing the second hypothesis revealed that corruption in Ghana exhibits all of the five dimensions of corruption that were examined. Hence, there is correlation among the corrupting activities.

The research is limited by the availability of data; hence, only data for selected variables for the period were examined.

The results are indicative that most emerging economies tend to have more than one type of dominating corruption dimension, which are tax-evading triggers.

The study extends the literature by examining the various dimensions of corruption, analysing the strength of their relationships and how they impact tax evasion in an emerging economy. By identifying and employing specific corrupting activities, there is a better understanding and appreciation of the corruption-tax evasion nexus in the revenue generation process. This may aid emerging economies in the drafting of tax evasion and corruption reduction policies/programmes to ensure the achievement of sustainable development goals.

While some countries have used debt to drive economic growth, the asymmetric effect on sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries has received little attention in the empirical literature. This paper therefore examines the asymmetric effect of external debts on economic growth.

The panel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) approach was employed in the study for 29 sub-Saharan African countries from 1990 to 2021. The cross-sectional dependence test was used to determine the presence of cross-sectional dependence, while the second-generation panel unit root tests was used to examine the unit-root properties.

The empirical results show that external debt has an asymmetric effect on economic growth in both the short and long run. In the long run, a positive shock in external debts of 1% triggers an upturn in economic growth by 0.216% while a negative shock triggers 0.354% decline in economic growth. This implies that the negative shock of external debts has a much stronger impact on economic growth than the positive shock. In the short run, a positive shock in external debts by 1% triggers a decline in economic growth by 0.641%, while a negative shock of 1% triggers a fall in economic growth of 0.170%.

The paper used the NARDL model to examine the asymmetric impact of external debt on the economic growth of SSA countries, which has not been extensively studied. It is recommended that governments in the selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa should drive economic growth by promoting domestic revenue mobilization since external debts impede economic growth.

This paper aims to use an econometric model to estimate tax evasion from the size of the underground economy and examined the factors that trigger it.

The study used time series data sourced from world development indicators and Bank of Ghana covering the period 1990-2015 to estimate tax evasion from the underground economy using an autoregressive distributed lag model drawing on the currency demand approach.

The results confirmed the existence of a large underground economy and a high incidence of tax evasion in Ghana. The Ghanaian situation has been aggravated by an underground economy-triggering factor of mobile money activities, which increased by 83.1 per cent in 2015. Tax evasion averaged 20.78 per cent of GDP over the period. The study, thus, concludes that the increased number of mobile money activities, high tax burden and unemployment contribute to the worsening of the tax evasion problem in Ghana.

The study is one of the premier attempts to introduce electricity power consumption variables in the currency demand model to estimate tax evasion from the size of the underground economy. The authors hypothesize that the emergence of mobile money activities in its current form triggers underground and tax-evading activities. The study, thus, calls for the formalization and regulation of the operations of mobile money activities in emerging economies as a way of managing the underground economy, which incubates tax evasion.