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This study examines the impact of trade facilitation and institutions on sustainable environment on a panel of 41 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2005–2014. Six composite indicators of trade facilitation (namely: export costs, import costs, export documents, import documents, export time, and import time) with a composite index (TFindex) are employed on four indicators of environmental sustainability (viz; natural resource depletion, net forest depletion, biocapacity, and ecological footprint of consumption) together with their combined index (Envindex) using the System Generalized Method of Moments. The following findings are established: first, the indicators of TF are significant and positively correlated with environmental sustainability (ES). Second, institutional quality dampens ES for the most part of the models. Third, the adverse effects of TF measures, institutional quality, and their interactive terms seem more severe from consumption angle than production, thus suggesting that the sources of environmental pollutants are more consumption oriented than production. What is more, Environmental Kuznets Curve Thesis finds a further empirical support. Going forward, the need for a well-harmonized trade facilitation procedure within a sound institutional environment, supported by a well-implemented national environmental protection law hold the promising key to addressing the prevailing environmental issues in the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the role of institutional infrastructures in the financial inclusion‐growth nexus for a panel of 20 countries in sub‐Sahara Africa (SSA). Employing the System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), the following insightful outcomes are established. First, while there is an unrestricted positive impact of physical access to ATMs and ICT measures of financial inclusion on SSA's growth, only the former was found significant. Second, the four institutional components via economic, political, institutional and general governances were also found to be growth‐spurring. Lastly, countries with low levels of real per capita income are catching=up with other countries with high levels of real income per capita. The empirical evidence of some negative net effects and insignificant marginal impacts are indications that imperfections in the financial markets are sometimes employed to the disadvantage of the poor. On the whole, we established positive effects on growth for the most part. The positive effects are evident because the governance indicators complement financial inclusion in reducing pecuniary constraints hindering credit access and allocation to the poor that deteriorate growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sub-Saharan African region is blessed with abundant natural resources and diverse ethnic groups, yet the region is dominated by the largest number of poor people worldwide due to inequitable distribution of national income. Existing statistics forecast decay in the quality of lives over the years compared to the continent of Asia that shares similar history with the region. In this paper, a five-dimensional first-order nonlinear ordinary differential equation was formulated to give insight into various factors that shaped dynamics of inclusive growth in sub-Saharan Africa. The validity test was performed based on ample mathematical theorems and the model was found to be valid. The model was then studied qualitatively and quantitatively via stability theory of nonlinear differential equations which depended on the policy success ratio and classical fourth-order Runge-Kutta scheme implemented in Maple, respectively. The results from the analysis showed that inclusive growth from abundant natural resources and ethnic diversity in sub-Saharan Africa was a function of policy reform whereby an increase in both equitable distribution of national income and accessibility of common man to the goods and services provided by the state to narrow inequality gap was accompanied with a low level of nepotism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an increasing wave of globalization since the turn of the millennium. This study focuses on two by-products of globalization: dollarization and tourism. Empirical studies have ignored the possible relationship between dollarization and tourism. However, we hypothesize that a booming tourism industry will fuel increase in the usage and circulation of foreign currencies, thus increasing the level of dollarization. The objective of this study is to examine the extent to which the tourism industry exacerbates the dollarization process of selected Sub-sahara African (SSA) countries. Using Tobit regression, we found that tourism positively affects dollarization. Our results are robust to: (i) alternative measures of tourism; (ii) accounting for endogeneity and outlier effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trilogy among economic growth, social capital (SC), and financial development is examined based on three hypotheses: first, SC is important in the finance‐growth nexus. Second, there is a threshold effect of SC in the finance‐growth nexus. Third, the SC‐finance‐growth trilogy depends on the countries' income level. Building data set for 70 countries, some interesting results were obtained: (i) the marginal effects of both SC and finance promote economic growth at higher levels; (ii) there is evidence of a threshold effect of SC, as finance enhances more growth when SC is below the threshold level; (iii) higher‐income countries tend not to benefit from the SC‐finance‐growth trilogy. These results suggest that the influence of SC on growth trajectory is exaggerated in the literature. The study recommends that policymakers should pursue other sources of economic growth aside SC, while ensuring that the level of SC does not deteriorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]