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on Africa |
| By: | Simplice A. Asongu (Johannesburg, South Africa); Samba Diop (Alioune Diop University, Bambey, Senegal); Ekene ThankGod Emeka (University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria); Amarachi O. Ogbonna (Bengaluru Campus, India) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates how governance and infrastructure moderate the effect of natural resource rents on economic growth using a sample of 110 countries, including 47 African countries from 2000 to 2018. The empirical evidence is based on Panel Smooth Transition Regressions (PSTR). The following findings are established. First, the nexus between economic growth and natural resources is not linear and the underlying non-linearity is contingent on existing infrastructural and governance levels. Second, evidence of a “natural resource curse†is apparent in countries with extremely low levels of governance and infrastructural development. Third, the favorable effect of natural resources on economic growth requires a governance threshold of -1.210 and an infrastructure threshold of 2.583, indicating that countries with governance and infrastructure levels higher than these values tend to benefit much more from the wealth of natural resources. With high levels of the transition variables (governance and infrastructure), the established thresholds are low and situated between the 5thand the 10th percentiles. Countries identified below the established thresholds are mainly from Africa. Policy implications are discussed with specific emphasis on African countries. |
| Keywords: | Natural Resources; Economic Growth; Governance; Infrastructure; Threshold; Panel Smooth Transition Regressions; Generalised Method of Moments; Panel |
| JEL: | H10 Q20 Q30 O11 O55 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:24/027 |
| By: | Roodman, David |
| Abstract: | Hjort and Poulsen (2019) frames the staggered arrival of submarine Internet cables on the shores of Africa circa 2010 as a difference-in-differences natural experiment. The paper finds positive impacts of broadband on individual- and firm-level employment and nighttime light emissions. These results largely are not robust to alternative ge-ocoding of survey locations, to correcting for a satellite changeover at end-2009, and to revisiting a definition of the treated zone that has no clear technological basis, is narrower than the spatial resolution of nearly all the data sources, and is empirically suboptimal as a representation of the geography of broadband. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:148 |
| By: | Raputsoane, Leroi |
| Abstract: | This study analyses the relationship between the attributes of a selected set of the minerals companies and corporate governance in South Africa. This is achieved by comparing the corporate governance rating of companies in the minerals sector to that of the companies in the other sectors of the economy against a set of attributes that comprise the sampled companies’ economic activity, size, market performance, financial performance and transparency. The empirical results have shown that autonomous corporate governance as well as the measures of transparency, required disclosure and additional disclosure, of the sampled companies have a statistically significant positive relationship with corporate governance, while the companies’ attributes that include the companies’ economic activity, size as well as market and financial performance do not have a statistically significant relationship with corporate governance. Consequently, the conclusion is no discernible difference in corporate governance of companies in the minerals sector compared to companies in the other sectors of the economy. |
| Keywords: | Corporate governance, Minerals companies, Companies’ attributes |
| JEL: | C13 D22 G3 |
| Date: | 2024–09–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:121906 |
| By: | Rapha\"el Boulat |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the causal effect of mineral trade on conflicts in Africa using a Shift-Share IV approach based on an exogenous price-commodity shock. The main result is that an increase in mineral trade significantly increases the number of conflicts while it has no clear effect on fatalities. Exploring heterogeneous effects, I find that a specific group of minerals, oil and fuels, drives the results on the number of conflicts. Moreover, the group of rare minerals such as coltan, precious metals or cobalt has no effect on the number of conflicts but appears to have an important impact on the number of fatalities. |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2408.08923 |
| By: | Fakih, Ali (Lebanese American University); Lizzaik, Zeina (Concordia University) |
| Abstract: | The phenomenon of overqualification is becoming increasingly common across many countries. In this research study, the main objective is to examine factors that determine overqualification, the impact of overqualification on wages, and the earning differences between genders in the case of Egypt. We use a cross-sectional micro-level dataset taken from the Egyptian Labor Force Survey (LFS) conducted by the Economic Research Forum (ERF). We employ a probit model to capture factors determining overqualification. The empirical results reveal that different sociodemographic, economic sector, and job-related factors determine overqualification. Moreover, we apply different matching techniques, radius matching, nearest-neighbor matching, and a weighting method, inverse probability weighting (IPW) to estimate the causal impact of overqualification on wage earnings. The result shows that overqualification affects the hourly wage earnings negatively. For further investigation, we estimate our regression by gender. The coefficients are negative for both genders, with a higher magnitude among females, revealing that overqualified females face higher wage penalties than overqualified males. The paper provides policy recommendations for both the Egyptian educational system and the job market to mitigate overqualification in the country. |
| Keywords: | overqualification, wage penalty, matching techniques, Egypt |
| JEL: | I21 J23 J31 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17247 |