Gregory N. Price and Juliet U. Elu
The purpose of this paper is to consider whether regional currency integration in sub-Saharan Africa ameliorates global macroeconomic shocks by considering the impact of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider whether regional currency integration in sub-Saharan Africa ameliorates global macroeconomic shocks by considering the impact of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis on economic growth. This suggests that Central Africa Franc Zone (CFAZ) eurocurrency union membership amplifies the effects of global business cycles in sub-Saharan Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors estimate the parameters of a quantity theory model of economic growth within a Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) Framework.
Findings
Parameter estimates from GEE specifications reveal that the contraction in credit during the financial crisis of 2008-2009 had larger adverse growth effects on sub-Saharan African countries who were members of the CFAZ eurocurrency union. The authors also find that sub-Saharan African countries who were members of the CFAZ eurocurrency union were more likely to experience a contraction in credit.
Originality/value
As far as the authors can discern, no existing empirical growth models use a GEE framework to estimate parameters of interest. The GEE parameter estimates are distribution-free, robust with respect to unknown forms of heteroskedasticity, and control for a wide variety of error structures that can induce bias in panel data parameter estimates.
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Keywords
Gregory N. Price and Juliet U. Elu
The purpose of this paper is to use a neoclassical factor pricing approach to carbon emissions, and consider whether the productivity of carbon emissions differs in Sub-Saharan…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to use a neoclassical factor pricing approach to carbon emissions, and consider whether the productivity of carbon emissions differs in Sub-Saharan Africa relative to the rest of the world.
Design/methodology/approach
Allowing for possible cross-country dependency and correlation in the effects of the factors of production on the level of gross domestic product per capita, the authors estimate the parameters of a cross-country net production function with carbon emissions as an input.
Findings
While there is a “Sub-Saharan Africa effect” whereby carbon emissions are less productive as an input relative to the rest of the world; practically it is equally productive relative to all other countries suggesting a unfavorable distributional impact if Sub-Saharan Africa were to implement carbon emissions reductions consistent with the Kyoto Protocol.
Research limitations/implications
If global warming is not anthropogenic or caused by carbon emissions, the parameter estimates do not inform an optimal and equitable carbon emissions policy based upon Sub-Saharan Africans reducing their short-run living standards.
Practical implications
Fair and equitable global carbon emissions policies should aim to treat Sub-Saharan African countries in proportion to their carbon emissions, and not unfairly impose emissions constraints on them equal to that of countries in the industrialized west.
Social implications
As Sub-Saharan Africa has a disproportionate number of individuals in the world living on less than one dollar a day, the results suggest “Black Africa” may not be able to afford being a “Green Africa.”
Originality/value
The results are the first to quantify the effects of carbon emissions restrictions on output and their distributional implications for Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Currently, more than 300,000 children under the age of eighteen are fighting as soldiers with government armed forces and armed opposition groups in more than thirty countries…
Abstract
Currently, more than 300,000 children under the age of eighteen are fighting as soldiers with government armed forces and armed opposition groups in more than thirty countries worldwide. In more than eighty-five countries, hundreds of thousands more under-eighteens have been recruited into government armed forces, paramilitaries, civil militia and a wide variety of non-state armed groups. Millions of children worldwide receive military training and indoctrination in youth movements and schools. While most child soldiers are aged between fifteen and eighteen, the youngest age reported is seven (UN Chronicle, Winter 2000).
MANY delegates were plainly astonished when they heard in Dublin that next year the gathering of the European Work Study Federation will take the form of a World Congress on…
Abstract
MANY delegates were plainly astonished when they heard in Dublin that next year the gathering of the European Work Study Federation will take the form of a World Congress on Productivity Science. The reaction was not surprising, for to distend a continent into a globe within the space of seven years is a feat of truly Napoleonic proportions.