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This paper aims to examine the factors that contribute to the external debt growth in Ghana.

The study adopts the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and the error correction model (ECM) to establish the short-run and long-run relationships between the dependent variable (external debt) and the independent variables (debt service, exchange rate, gross domestic product, government expenditure, import and trade openness), using a time series data spanning from 1990 to 2019.

The results indicate that debt service, GDP, government expenditure and trade openness have a positive and significant relationship with external debt, while import and exchange rates have a negative relationship with external debt in the long run. In the short run, debt service, import, exchange rate and trade openness have a positive and significant relationship with external debt, while GDP has a negative relationship with external debt.

The study found that variables such as government expenditure, debt service and import contribute significantly to the nation’s external debt stock. These findings suggest that policymakers should focus on prioritising and cutting down expenditure in their quest to curtail the debt menace facing the nation. Since existing debt service has the tendency of influencing debt stock, it is recommended that government should reduce borrowing in order avoid debt trap. Home-grown policies to reduce imports must also be encouraged. As these drivers of external debt are tackled head-on, Ghana can be rightly positioned to record lower levels of public debt and subsequently reap the benefits of economic growth.

The study adds to the public debt literature, specifically addressing the idiosyncratic determinants of external debt within the Ghanaian context.

This study aims to decompose financial development into its three key components (depth, access and efficiency) to investigate whether they can help to overturn the negative impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the environment.

The study uses a dynamic panel of 43 economies from 1982 to 2018 and decomposed financial development into its three key components: depth, access and efficiency.

The results from the various estimations indicate that financial deepening and efficiency reduce environmental risk and can overturn the negative impact of FDI on the environment. In addition, the study finds that low levels of financial access worsen environmental risk but doubling financial access is likely to reduce it which makes the relationship between access and environmental risk non-monotonic. After splitting the data set into high and low financially developed economies, the study reports that FDI is more environmentally depressive among low financially developed economies.

The practical implications are that improvement in financial efficiency guarantees high returns on savings and investment and can reduce environmental risk. So, central governments should invest in financial technologies and formulate financial regulations through monetary and fiscal policies to enhance financial efficiency and depth.

If inward FDI to Africa continues the business-as-usual trend, the environmental risk in the region may continue to rise, environmental conditionalities for FDI must be strengthened.

The study uses a comprehensive measure of financial sector development and decomposes financial development indicators to assess their efficacy in mitigating the relationship between FDI and environmental quality.

This study seeks to: (1) examine the extent of interconnectedness prevailing between the cryptocurrency market, the stock market and the precious metals market. (2) Conduct thorough assessment of hedge and safe-haven qualities of broad range of precious metals and cryptocurrencies against returns on the African stock market.

This study applied two novel approaches that is Cross-quantilogram, an advanced statistical technique used to examine the relationship between quantiles of response variable and the quantiles of predictor variables, and TVP-VAR, a technique that captures the dynamic connectedness of variables under consideration.

It was found that the three markets are highly interconnected, particularly among assets under the respective financial markets. It was further revealed that the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) was the most resilient stock market, whereas Bitcoin, BNB, Silver (XAG) and Platinum (XPT) also exhibited notable resistance to shocks. Finally, the study found that cryptocurrencies and precious metals portrayed varying hedge and safe haven qualities under the various stock markets.

The high interdependency between the African stock market, cryptocurrencies and precious metals suggests that none of the markets is immune to shocks form the other market. The finding that cryptocurrencies and precious metals exhibit some degree of safe-haven and hedge potentials, albeit limited in certain stock markets, provides investors with alternative investment options during market downturns. Since most African stock markets, except the JSE, are net receivers of shocks, investors in these markets should exercise caution during periods of global financial uncertainty.

To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to explore the dynamic interconnectedness between seven carefully selected African stock markets, three distinct cryptocurrencies and four precious metals, while also assessing the hedge and safe-haven potential of the cryptocurrencies and precious metals against stock market returns. Additionally, the study stands out in recent literature by employing two novel approaches: the TVP-VAR model, which captures the dynamic connectedness among variables, and the Cross-Quantilogram, an advanced statistical method that analyzes the relationship between the quantiles of the response and predictor variables, all within a single study.

This research investigates the threshold effects of the interplay between finance, development and carbon emissions across 97 countries, including 50 low-income and 47 high-income countries, during the period from 1991 to 2019.

Employing various econometric modeling techniques such as dynamic linear regression, dynamic panel threshold regression and in/out of sample splitting, this study analyzes the data obtained from the World Bank's world development indicators.

The results indicate that low-income countries require a minimum financial development threshold of 0.354 to effectively reduce carbon emissions. Conversely, high-income countries require a higher financial development threshold of 0.662 to mitigate finance-induced carbon emissions. These findings validate the presence of a finance-led Environmental Kuznet Curve (EKC). Furthermore, the study highlights those high-income countries exhibit greater environmental concern compared to their low-income counterparts. Additionally, a minimum GDP per capita of US$ 10,067 is necessary to facilitate economic development and subsequently reduce carbon emissions. Once GDP per capita surpasses this threshold, a rise in economic development by a certain percentage could lead to a 0.96% reduction in carbon emissions across all income levels.

This study provides a novel contribution by estimating practical financial and economic thresholds essential for reducing carbon emissions within countries at varying levels of development.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether asset allocation across various industries listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) varies across different monetary policy states.

This paper adopts the Markov Chain technique to split monetary policy into three different states. The authors further adopt the Markowitz portfolio optimization technique to find the minimum variance and optimum portfolio for the industries listed on the GSE.

The finding reveals a dynamic asset allocation, which varies the industry’s weight mix across the various monetary policy states enhance excess returns compared to the static asset allocation. Specifically, the authors find risk-return trade-off among industries listed on the GSE. Financial and Food and Beverage industries portfolios record high returns relative to the Government of Ghana 91-day Treasury bill. The Food and Beverage portfolio is the only portfolio that records relatively high excess returns across all the monetary policy states. The authors also find that, during expansionary state (high monetary policy rates) of the monetary policy, investors are to allocate about 69 and 30 percent of their investment into food and beverages and financials, respectively. Corner solution is found in the transient state where 100 percent of wealth is allocated to financial to obtain the optimum portfolio. The optimum portfolio in the contraction state assigns 52 percent to financials and 42 percent to manufacturing. In summary, the result supports the dependence of investors’ asset allocation decisions on monetary policy.

Therefore, the authors propose an investment strategy which is dynamic and takes into consideration the monetary policy states rather than static asset allocation which maintains the same industry weight mix over the investment period.

In sum, the authors interpret the result as support for the dependence of investors’ asset allocation decisions on monetary policy. In Ghana, an increase in the monetary policy appears to support industries listed on the equity market. The result also gives knowledge about investors’ asset allocation decisions on the GSE, which is practical balanced source of information for investors’ risk and return choices. For a prudent monetary policy framework, the monetary policy committee should monitor industries listed on the GSE. The result from the analysis has also an implication for investors, portfolio managers and fund managers to consider the state of the monetary policy in Ghana when making investment decisions.

The study differs from earlier research on asset allocation by breaking new grounds on two levels. First of all, based on the notion that different industries have different exposures to monetary policy states, the authors extend the portfolios by grouping the equities listed on the GSE into their industrial sectors. Second, the authors examine how investors’ optimal portfolio allocation may change depending on the state of monetary policy.

The study measures the total systemic risks and connectedness across commodities, stocks, exchange rates and bond markets in Africa during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The study uses the Diebold-Yilmaz spillover and connectedness measures in a generalized VAR framework. The author calculates the net transmitters or receivers of shocks between two assets and visualizes their strength using a network analysis tool.

The study found low systemic risks across all assets and countries. However, we found higher systemic risks in the forex market than in the stock and bond markets, and in South Africa than in other countries. The dynamic analysis found time-varying connectedness return shocks, which increased during the peak periods of the first and second waves of the pandemic. We found both gold and oil as net receivers of shocks. Overall, over half of all assets were net receivers, and others were net transmitters of return shocks. The network connectedness plot shows high net pairwise connectedness from Morocco to South Africa stock market.

The study has implications for policymakers to develop the capacities of local investors and markets to limit portfolio outflows during a crisis.

Previous studies have analyzed spillovers across asset classes in a single country or a single asset across countries. This paper contributes to the literature on network connectedness across assets and countries.

Despite the growing recognition of the complex interplay between macroeconomic shock indexes and stock market dynamics, there is a significant research gap concerning their interconnectedness and return spillovers in the context of the African stock market. This leaves much to be desired, given that the financial market in Africa is arguably one of the most preferred destinations for hedge and portfolio diversification (Alagidede, 2008; Anyikwa and Le Roux, 2020). Further, like other financial markets across the globe, the increased capital flow, coupled with declining information asymmetry in Africa, has deepened intra and inter-sectoral integration within and across national borders. This has, thus, increased the susceptibility of financial markets in Africa to spillover of shocks from other sectors and jurisdictions. Additionally, while previous studies have investigated these factors individually (Asafo-Adjei et al., 2020), with much emphasis on developed markets, an all-encompassing examination of spillovers and the connectedness between the aforementioned macroeconomic shock indexes and stock market returns remains largely unexplored. This study happens to be the first to consider the impact of each of the indexes on stock returns in Africa, with evidence spanning from May 2007 to April 2023, covering notable global crisis episodes such as the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine war.

This study employs the novel quantile vector autoregression (QVAR) model, making it the first of its kind in literature. By applying the QVAR, the study captures the potential nonlinear and asymmetric relationship between stock returns and the factors of interest across different quantiles, i.e. bearish, normal and bullish market conditions. Thus, the approach allows for a more accurate and nuanced examination of the tail dependence and extreme events, providing insights into the behaviour of the variables under extreme events.

The study revealed that connectedness and spillovers intensified under bearish and bullish market conditions. It was also observed that, among the macroeconomic shock indicators, FSI exerted the highest influence on stock returns in Africa in both bullish and normal market conditions. Across the various market regimes, the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) and the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) were net receiver of shocks.

This study happens to be the first to consider the impact of each of the indexes on stock returns in Africa, with evidence spanning from May 2007 to April 2023, covering notable global crisis episodes such as the GFC, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine war. On the methodology front, this study employs the novel QVAR model, making it one of the few studies in recent literature to apply the said method.

In this paper, we use empirical models to examine the main channel through which FDI escalates environmental risk. We explore whether countries with “weak” or better still low tax rate attract “dirty” FDI to deteriorate their environment

The analysis uses a 40-year panel to show that foreign direct investment (FDI) and tax policy matter in accounting for cross-country environmental risk.

Our sample finds support that the tax channel is the main medium through which FDI worsens environmental risk. By discomposing tax policy into low and high regimes, we report that countries that deliberately reform tax policy to bait FDI have higher environmental risk.

A useful lesson from here is that using tax policy to lure FDI amounts to shortchanging capital risk for environmental risk.

The paper is unique because it identifies tax policy as a channel through which FDI affects the environment in Africa. Other studies overly simplifies the relationship between FDI and its impact on the environment, and it makes it difficult and ambiguous in offering specific policy direction.

This paper aims to find out how the legal system interacts with other institutions in attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Africa.

The authors use annual panel data of 49 African countries over the period 1980 to 2011, and use the system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique and pooled panel data regression.

The authors find that the source of a country’s legal system deters FDI inflow as institutions alone cannot bring in the needed quantum of FDI. In terms of trading blocs, it was found that there is negative significant relationship between institutional quality and FDI for South African Development Community (SADC) as well as Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) countries.

For policy implications, the results suggest that reliance on institutions alone cannot project the continent to attract the needed FDI.

Empiricists have devoted considerable effort to estimating the relationship between institutions and FDI on the African continent, but this paper seeks to ascertain the effect of legal systems and institutional quality within African specific trade and regional blocks.

Does the issuance of Eurobonds carry enough information about favourable domestic conditions to warrant more FDI inflows? In this study, the authors investigate how FDI is responding to the rising levels of Eurobonds in sub-Saharan African (SSA).

The study uses the system GMM model to set up a panel with all 17 SSA countries with Eurobonds. The dataset was transformed into time series, and the VAR model and Granger causality were used to diffuse the doubt of a possible bi-causal relationship between Eurobonds and FDI. Additionally, the authors use the impulse response function to test the behaviour of FDI to a one-time shock to Eurobonds.

The study reports that Eurobond levels matter in explaining FDI receipts. Specifically, the authors report that the issuance of Eurobonds leads to a favourable increase in FDI inflows. The authors transform our data into time series and use the VAR model and Granger causality test to diffuse the doubt of a possible bi-causal relationship between Eurobonds and FDI. The authors’ findings from this exercise suggest that two lag levels of Eurobond are a good predictor of future FDI flows. More also, the authors use the impulse response function to test the behaviour of FDI to a one-time shock to Eurobonds and report that a one-unit standard deviation shock to Eurobonds will cause FDI to swell up over at least 8 years.

The study is limited in scope due to data availability. Future studies may consider using countries across the globe that have issued Eurobond to retest the current research objectives.

The study establishes grounds to suggest that the issuance of Eurobonds carry enough information to foreign investors in deciding on the location of FDI.

The study is uniquely opening a new frontier to the discussion on how one international capital can be used to bait other foreign capital. It also discusses signalling theory at the macro level.