Performance In Sub-Saharan Africa Research Articles

Energy security, governance quality, and economic performance in sub-Saharan Africa

This study investigates the role of energy security and governance quality in economic performance using 22 sub-Saharan African countries between 2000 and 2020. It explores Poisson Pseudo-maximum Likelihood Estimator. More so, five measures of energy security (accessibility, affordability, acceptability, availability, and developability) and four measures of governance quality (political, economic, institutional, and aggregate) are considered. The results show that only the availability and developability of energy security significantly and positively enhance economic performance. Other measures have little or no effect on economic performance. Additionally, measures of governance quality largely and positively facilitate economic performance. On interaction terms, governance quality was found to significantly enhance the effectiveness of the availability aspects of energy security on economic performance. However, the governance structure is still very weak to foster the effectiveness of other aspects of energy security in the growth process. Thus, countries need to be proactive in strengthening their governance structures to harness the benefits associated with energy security for sustainable economic growth. Specifically, policymakers need to prioritize policies that will enhance energy availability and developability, promote energy sustainability and equality, disincentivize high-emission energy sources, strengthen governance roles in energy security, and mitigate oil price volatility.

Financial Inclusion and Information Communication Technology on Tax Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Purpose: The main objective of this paper is to determine empirically the impact of financial inclusion and Information Communication Technology (ICT) on tax performance in Sub-Saharan African countries; determine the extent to which the elements of financial inclusion have influenced tax performance of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa; and examine the role technology plays in impacting the performance of taxes in Sub-Saharan African countries. Theoretical Framework: The existing theories that serve as a roadmap for the development of this study are Theory of Digital Diffusion and Theory of Margins. Digital transformation has an important impact on the operations and systems of every economy, which often triggers a positive effect on taxes. Diffusion innovation theory was initiated by Rogers in 1962. The Theory of Margin on the other hand, is a theoretical school that gives validity to the impact of financial development on product output. It suggests that more access to financial services and products is vital for high output and economic advancement. Design/Methodology/Approach: The population considered in this study was 48 sub-Saharan African Countries from the period of 1999 to 2019. The methods used for the analysis consists of the descriptive and correlation analysis on the identified variables and a creation of financial inclusion index using the Principal Component Analysis to deal with multiclonality challenge amongst the financial inclusion proxies, it also adopted the two-staged least square estimation technique for the empirical analysis. Findings: The study reveals inter alia that the variables for financial inclusion and ICT proxies are overwhelmingly positive and significantly impact on the tax performance (i.e., total tax revenue and the non-resource tax revenue as percentages of GDP), in sub-Saharan Africa and that the financial inclusion index has positive effect on tax performance in sub-Saharan Africa. We also observed that there is a positive relationship between technology and tax performance in sub-Saharan Africa. Research Practical & Social implications: Policies should be formulated to engender enhancement of technology and more investment should be allocated to technology as it is discovered to drive financial inclusion and promotes tax revenue mobilization. In general, the findings indicate that policies are needed to engender an enhancement of technology and more investment should be channeled to technology as it affects financial inclusion and by logical extension, the promotion of tax revenue mobilization. Originality/value: The challenge of tax implementation can be directly ascribed to an ineffective tax system. A tax management that is of high in superiority, helps to make the tax mobilization process more transparent and efficient, and also reduce the level of shadow economy, which main feature is non- remittance or payment of tax. This study reveals that a tax administration system can only operate effectively with the use of modern information technologies.

Firm performance in sub-Saharan Africa: What role do electricity shortages play?

Firm performance in sub-Saharan Africa: What role do electricity shortages play?

Extracting Innovation Value from Intellectual Property: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

AbstractAlthough a sizable body of research concerning innovation and intellectual property (IP) performance exists, there has been limited attention on whether the state of IP strengthens or curtails innovation activity in the global south, specifically among sub-Saharan Africa firms. This article analyzes the direct impacts of IP on innovation performance in sub-Saharan Africa, namely patents, copyrights, industrial designs, and trademarks. The paper responds to firms extracting value from intellectual property strategies through innovation activities and overall performance. Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) and Innovation Follow-up Survey (IFS), we find that appropriation channels are essential for transforming innovation pursuits into a competitive advantage. Our results further reinforce that appropriation mechanisms are crucial to innovation and may allow firms to gain returns on their innovation activities. Regardless of the weaknesses and limitations of the patenting strategy in sub-Saharan Africa, the probability of patenting an innovation relates to a process and product innovation while controlling for several other effects. More importantly, we demonstrate how industrial designs and improved or changed trademarks can foster inclusive performance. In addition, we show that beyond perception-based innovations, intellectual property strategies also matter to innovation intensity and sales growth. Consequently, our results indicate that the significance of innovation for competitiveness puts intellectual capital at the critical juncture of knowledge management.

Mobile money innovations and health performance in sub-Saharan Africa

This study assesses nexuses between mobile money innovations and health performance in terms of total life expectancy in 43 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa employing data for the period 2004–2018. Four mobile money innovation dynamics are proxied with registered mobile money agents and active mobile money agents. The empirical evidence is based on quantile regressions. The findings overwhelmingly show that mobile money innovations are relevant in improving health performance or total life expectancy exclusively in bottom quantiles of the conditional distribution of total life expectancy. In other words, countries with below-median levels of total life expectancy are more susceptible to benefit from mobile money innovations compared to countries with above-median levels of total life expectancy. It follows that common or general policy measures on the linkage between mobile money innovations and health performance are unlikely to succeed unless attendant policies are contingent on initial levels of health performance and hence, tailored differently across countries with various initial levels of health performance. More policy implications are discussed.

Trust Institutions, Perceptions of Economic Performance, and the Mitigating Role of Political Diversity in Sub-Saharan Africa

Several previous studies have explored the relationship between trust and socio-economic conditions but do not attempt to examine channels through which the relation operates. In this paper, we examine how political fractionalization mitigates the positive relationship between trust institutions and national economic performance in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using Round 7 data of Afrobarometer in over 1000 districts in 34 countries, we find that trust institutions positively and significantly affect economic performance. Nevertheless, the positive effect is attenuated in districts with a high level of political diversity. More specifically, a higher level of trust is associated with lower economic performance at a higher level of political fractionalization and vice versa, with a steady linear decrease of the estimated coefficients. Policy implications are discussed.

Aid and Governance: Impact of Chinese Aid on the Evaluation of Government Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

One of a government's primary responsibilities is to provide public goods and services for the benefit of citizens. A government that excels in such provision may therefore win favorable evaluations from its citizens. However, if external state and non-state actors through foreign aid issuance become providers of what citizens expect from their government, citizens may doubt their government's competence. In recent decades, China has become an important donor to Africa, providing the continent with several aid projects. Consequently, this study examines whether aid from China undermines citizens’ evaluations of government performance. Geocoded data on Chinese aid projects are matched to 4 waves of Afrobarometer survey respondents from 31 sub-Saharan African countries. Using an instrumental variable estimation, the findings indicate that Chinese aid undermines the evaluation of government performance. Testing for the mechanism through which this effect manifests, the results suggest Chinese aid engenders corruption perceptions and erodes trust.

The attainment of gender education equality: A preliminary assessment of country performance in sub-Saharan Africa

The research literature on girls’ education in low and middle income countries focuses almost exclusively on ‘what works?’ which is confined mainly to relatively small scale experimental interventions, particularly randomised control trials This evidence is important but it provides few insights about the overall (especially more recent) progress made by individual countries and the overall effectiveness of the national strategies and specific policies in promoting girls’ education. This article is an initial attempt to redress this research imbalance. It has three principal objectives. Firstly, it outlines a broad conceptual framework which provides the basis for a holistic analysis of country-level performance in improving girls’ education. Secondly, it presents an initial, tentative assessment of country performance in improving girls’ education across sub-Saharan Africa. And thirdly, it explores some of the potentially key national characteristics and policy interventions which may help to explain the considerable variability in country performance during the last two decades in redressing gender inequalities in education in this region.

Impact of global value chains integration on firm performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from micro panel data

Impact of global value chains integration on firm performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from micro panel data

Digital Technology and Trade Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Digital Technology and Trade Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Impact of Global Value Chains Integration on Firm Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Micro panel data

Impact of Global Value Chains Integration on Firm Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Micro panel data

Governance Quality and Trade Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Governance Quality and Trade Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Nexus between financial integration, capital market development and economic performance: Does institutional structure matters?

This study investigates the role of institutional structure on asymmetries dynamic impact of financial integration, capital market development on economic performance in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The study classified economic performance into RGDPC, nominal gdp and human capital development, and employed (PNARDL) modeling framework, and a panel of 16 nations of SSA over the period 1996–2019. The finding of this research output can be summarize as thus: i.) In the long run, a rise in positive shock to the financial integration index leads to a rise in RGDPC, while a negative shock to FI leads to a fall in RGDPC. ii.) Both shocks (positive and negative) to MCAP reduce RGDPC. Institutional quality index (INSQI) is revealed to have a positive and significant impact on RGDPC in the long run and indeed intensify their asymmetries. iii.) Both shocks to FI exert inverse influence on nominal GDPC, while positive and negative shocks to MCAP exert a positive and negative influence on GDPC, respectively. INSQI also affects GDPC negatively and significantly and indeed reduces their asymmetries. iv.) Positive and negative shocks to FI reduce HCD as well as shocks to MCAP. INSQI, on the other hand, adds to HCD and intensifies their asymmetries. However, the lack of consistency in the results across the models suggest that the interplay between these variables are still undeveloped relative to other continents of the world, and the benefits are yet to be adequately harnessed.

Mobile money innovations and health performance in sub-Saharan Africa

Mobile money innovations and health performance in sub-Saharan Africa

Inclusive Education and Health Performance in Sub Saharan Africa.

The study assesses the effect of inclusive education on health performance in 48 Sub Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2020. The study adopted the Driscoll/Kraay technique to address cross-sectional dependence and the GMM strategy to address potential endogeneity. The study employed three indicators of health performance which are the total life expectancy, the female life expectancy and the male life expectancy. Three gender parity index of educational enrolments are employed: primary education, secondary and the tertiary education as indicators of inclusive education. The findings of the study reveal that inclusive education enhances the health situation of individuals in Sub Saharan Africa. The findings further show that the health situation of both the male and the female are improved by inclusive education. The study recommends policymakers in this region to invest more in the education and the health sector so as to enhance the health performance of the citizens.

Water Infrastructure Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Investigation of the Drivers and Impact on Economic Growth

There is a strong link between water infrastructure and development outcomes. As such, water infrastructure challenges could have an adverse effect on the economy at large. This study investigates the drivers of water infrastructure performance and analyzes how investment in water infrastructure affects economic growth, focusing on a panel of thirty-one Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. An integrative theoretical framework using panel regressions was developed. The result showed that an increase in water infrastructure performance due to a 1% increase in per-capita income growth and trade openness was 0.2% and 0.03%, respectively, and the constraint on water infrastructure performance due to a 1% increase in population density was 0.76%. The result showed that the impact is mostly driven by the effect of per-capita income growth and population density on lower- and middle-income countries. Our results also revealed that one additional increase in water infrastructure investment leads to a higher impact on economic growth. We further complement our study by investigating the policy interventions that the support water infrastructure outcome effect. We found that investment in water infrastructure along with the provision of credit to the private sector is a strong driver of economic growth; however, access to credit beyond a certain threshold—relative to the level of investment in water infrastructure in these countries—investment in water infrastructure would lead to an adverse negative macroeconomic effect. The policy implications of this study are discussed.

The impact of tourism supply chain on sustainable performance in sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from Tanzania

PurposeThe fast-growth of tourism industry in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has increased supply chain activities that harm the environment. Although there are some studies which have investigated the impact of tourism supply chain on sustainable performance, little is known on the side of SSA. Based on the natural resource-based view (NRBV), this study examines the effects of green purchasing, green packaging and reverse logistics on sustainable performance in SSA.Design/methodology/approachThis study applies the structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the conceptual model based on the data collected in mid of 2020 from 167 firms in tourism industry in Tanzania.FindingsThe results demonstrate that green purchasing (GP) has positive effects on environmental performance (EVP) and social performance (SCP). Green packaging (GPa) has positive effects on EVP but no significant influence on SCP. Also, reverse logistics (RL) has positive effects on SCP but no significant influence on EVP. Besides, both EVP and SCP positively influence ECP and mediate the relationships between GP, GPa and RL with ECP.Originality/valueThis study provides a novel framework in sustainable tourism supply chain literature by empirically investigating the relationship between tourism supply chain practices and sustainable performance in SSA.

Trade Facilitation and Agriculture Sector Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insightful Policy Implications for Economic Sustainability

This study investigates the impact of trade facilitation though costs, documents, and time to import and export—on agricultural sector performance (ASP) for a panel of 33 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 2005 to 2019. The empirical analysis is based on a dynamic system of generalized method of moments. The following findings are established. First, higher import costs, documents, and time significantly improve ASP, while exports negatively impact ASP. Second, while import costs promote trade in agricultural products through substitution effects, export costs impede it. Third, among other factors, improvements in human capital, gross fixed capital formation, population growth, and trade openness significantly improve agricultural sector performance. Fourth, the results of the robustness check further emphasize the importance of TF on ASP from various dimensions. The study concludes that improving TF procedures by reducing costs, documents, and time in cross-border trade remains crucial to boosting agriculture sector performance in SSA.

Foreign ownership and firm performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Our study investigates the effects of foreign ownership on firm performance with respect to profitability, productivity, export intensity, and skills acquisition in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. This is particularly important given that in the last three decades, the stock of FDI has increased by over 20,000% in SSA countries. To achieve the objectives of this paper, we employed firm- and country-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys and the World Bank Development Indicators, respectively. Results of the least squares dummy variable (LSDV) and propensity score matching (PSM) estimations showed that foreign ownership was positively associated with higher levels of financial profitability, productivity, exports, and skilled labour acquisition. Policy implications were deduced from the findings.

Foreign Aid, Trade Openness and Economic Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Panel Cointegration Investigation

The objective of this paper was to investigate the impact of foreign aid and trade openness on economic performance for a panel of 30 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1970–2017 using panel cointegration techniques. The findings obtained in this paper suggest that foreign aid has contributed significantly to economic performance in SSA while trade openness has been detrimental to economic performance during the period under consideration. Also, the combined effect of aid and trade openness has enhanced economic performance. From a policy perspective, the study suggests that more should be done so that the benefits from aid inflows would result in sustained economic performance. Also, the external trade sector should be given the needed attention it deserves. Keywords: aid, trade openness, economic performance, panel cointegration, sub-Saharan Africa DOI: 10.7176/DCS/12-2-02 Publication date: February 28 th 2022