Jacinta C. Nwachukwu
Coventry University
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Publication
Featured researches published by Jacinta C. Nwachukwu.
Journal of Economic Studies | 2016
Simplice A. Asongu; Jacinta C. Nwachukwu
Purpose – Education as a weapon in the fight against conflict and violence remains widely debated in policy and academic circles. Against the background of growing political instability in Africa and the central role of the knowledge economy in 21st century development, this paper provides three contributions to existing literature. It assesses how political stability/non-violence is linked to the incremental, synergy and lifelong learning effects of education. Design/methodology/approach – We define lifelong learning as the combined knowledge acquired during primary, secondary and tertiary education. Principal component analysis is used to reduce the dimensions of educational and political indicators. An endogeneity robust dynamic system Generalized Methods of Moments is used for the estimations. Findings – We establish three main findings. First, education is a useful weapon in the fight against political instability. Second, there is an incremental effect of education in the transition from secondary to tertiary schools. Third, lifelong learning also has positive and synergy effects. This means that the impact of lifelong learning is higher than the combined independent effects of various educational levels. The empirical evidence is based on 53 African countries for the period 1996-2010. Practical implications – A plethora of policy implications are discussed, inter alia: how the drive towards increasing the knowledge economy through lifelong learning can be an effective tool in the fight against violence and political insurgency in Africa. Originality/value – As the continent is nursing knowledge economy ambitions, the paper is original in investigating the determinants of political stability/non violence from three dimensions of education attainment: the incremental, the lifelong learning and a synergy effect.
Information Development | 2017
Simplice A. Asongu; Jacinta C. Nwachukwu
The success of inclusive development strategies in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda depends substantially on the adoption of common inclusive development policies among nations. Building on the relevance of a knowledge economy in the post-2015 development agenda, this study models the feasibility of common policies for inclusive human development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). More specifically, we investigate the complementary role of knowledge diffusion in the inclusive benefits of mobile phone penetration in SSA from 2000 to 2012 by employing the Generalised Method of Moments. Knowledge diffusion variables include educational quality, innovation and Internet penetration. The main finding is that inclusive human development is persistently conditional on mobile phones in knowledge diffusion. Moreover, countries with low levels of inclusive human development are catching-up their counterparts with higher development. Policy implications are discussed with particular emphasis on how to leverage common knowledge economy initiatives for inclusive development.
Social Science Journal | 2016
Simplice A. Asongu; Jacinta C. Nwachukwu
Abstract The transition from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has shifted the policy debate from growth to ‘quality of growth’ (QG). We explore a new dataset on QG by the IMF and classify 93 developing countries for the period 1990–2011 in terms of Hopefuls, Contenders and Best Performers. The aims are as follows: (i) to depict the contradiction between high-growth and poor social welfare and (ii) to assess the influence of education and health spending on the QG. We use quantile regressions to articulate least and best QG performers. Two key findings emerge. First, 31 of the 33 countries in the Hopefuls category are in SSA. Second, the effect of health is decreasingly positive from Hopefuls to Best Performers, while the impact of education is increasingly positive. As a main policy implication, it would benefit countries in SSA to invest more in health relative to education now, but decrease such health expenditure and increase education spending as the economies in the sub-region make the transition from Hopeful to Contenders and finally to Best Performers in terms of ‘quality of growth’.
African Finance Journal | 2016
Simplice A. Asongu; Jacinta C. Nwachukwu
The study assesses the role of mobile phones and mobile banking in decreasing inequality in 52 African countries. The empirical procedure involves first, examining the income-redistributive effect of mobile phone penetration and then investigating the contribution of mobile banking services in this relationship. The findings suggest an equalizing income-redistributive effect of ‘mobile phone penetration’ and ‘mobile banking’, with a higher income-equalizing effect from mobile banking compared to mobile phone penetration. Poverty alleviation channels explaining this difference in inequality mitigating propensity are discussed.
Economics Bulletin | 2015
Simplice A. Asongu; Jacinta C. Nwachukwu
Education as a tool in the fight against corruption has been subject to much debate in academic and policy making circles. This note extends what we know on this nexus in a threefold manner: namely, in terms of: incremental, lifelong learning and synergy effects. Four main findings are established. First, education is a powerful tool in the fight against corruption. Second, there is evidence of an incremental effect in the transition from secondary to tertiary education. Third, lifelong learning defined as knowledge acquired during primary, secondary and tertiary education negatively affects corruption. Fourth, there is evidence of a ‘synergy effect’ because the impact of lifelong learning is higher than the combined effects of various educational levels. The empirical evidence is based on 53 African countries for the period 1996-2010. Two main policy implications are derived. First, encouraging education through the tertiary level enhances the fight against corruption. Second, the drive towards a knowledge economy by means of lifelong learning has ‘corruption mitigating’ benefits.
Social Science Quarterly | 2015
Simplice A. Asongu; Jacinta C. Nwachukwu
Motivated by the April 2015 World Bank Publication on MDGs which reveals that poverty has been declining in all regions of the world with the exception of African countries, this study investigates the effects of a plethora of foreign aid dynamics on inequality adjusted human development. Contemporary and non-contemporary OLS, Fixed-effects and a system GMM technique with forward orthogonal deviations are employed. The empirical evidence is based on an updated sample of 53 African countries for the period 2005-2012.The following findings are established. First, the impacts of aid dynamics with high degrees of substitution are positive. These include aid for: social infrastructure, economic infrastructure, the productive sector and multi-sectors. Second, the effect of humanitarian assistance is consistently negative across specifications and models. Third, the effects of programme assistance and action on debt are ambiguous because they become positive with the GMM technique. Justifications for these changes and clarifications with respect to existing literature are provided. Policy implications are discussed in the light of the post-2015 development agenda. We also provide some recommendations for a rethinking of theories and models on which development assistance is based.
Information Technology & People | 2018
Simplice A. Asongu; Jacinta C. Nwachukwu
We assess the correlations between mobile banking and inclusive development (poverty and inequality) in 93 developing countries for the year 2011. Mobile banking entails: ‘mobile phones used to pay bills’ and ‘mobile phones used to receive/send money’, while the modifying policy indicator is the human development index (HDI). The data is decomposed into seven sub-panels based on two fundamental characteristics, namely: regions (Latin America, Asia and Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, and Middle East and North Africa) and income levels (upper middle income, lower middle income and low income). Our results show that at certain thresholds of the HDI, mobile banking is positively linked to inclusive development. The following specific findings are established. First, the increased use of mobile phones to pay bills is negatively correlated with: (i) poverty in lower-middle-income countries (LMIC), upper-middle-income countries (UMIC) and Latin American countries (LA), respectively at HDI thresholds of 0.725, 0.727 and 0.778 and; (ii) inequality in UMIC and LA with HDI thresholds of respectively 0.646 and 0.761. Second, the increased use of mobile phones to send/receive money is negatively correlated with: (i) poverty in LMIC, UMIC and Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) with corresponding HDI thresholds of 0.631, 0.750 and 0.750 and (ii) inequality in UMIC, CEE and LA at HDI thresholds of 0.665, 0.736 and 0.726 respectively. The findings are discussed in the light of current policy challenges in the transition from Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable Development Goals. We have exploited the only macroeconomic data on mobile banking currently available.
Archive | 2008
Jacinta C. Nwachukwu
This paper presents a dynamic heterogeneous panel data model in which the reaction of the real exchange rate to external finance includes interactions with the measure of the trade openness, fiscal, monetary and nominal exchange rate policies of twenty-four primary-exporting Sub-Saharan African countries from 1978-2001. As expected, a rise in international transfers by itself exerts an upward pressure on the real exchange rate. However, this estimated positive effect of capital inflows was offset by associated policy interventions to liberalise trade controls and address problems of credit rationing in the private sector. This augurs well for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
International Journal of Managerial Finance | 2018
Venessa Tchamyou; Simplice A. Asongu; Jacinta C. Nwachukwu
The paper investigates the effects of information asymmetry (between the realised return and the expected return) on market timing in the mutual fund industry. For the purpose, we use a panel of 1488 active open-end mutual funds for the period 2004-2013. We use fund-specific time-dynamic betas. Information asymmetry is measured as the standard deviation of idiosyncratic risk. The dataset is decomposed into five market fundamentals in order to emphasis the policy implications of our findings with respect to (i) equity, (ii) fixed income, (iii) allocation, (iv) alternative and (v) tax preferred mutual funds. The empirical evidence is based on endogeneity-robust Difference and System Generalised Method of Moments. The following findings are established. First, information asymmetry broadly follows the same trend as volatility, with a higher sensitivity to market risk exposure. Second, fund managers tend to raise (cutback) their risk exposure in time of high (low) market liquidity. Third, there is evidence of convergence in equity funds. We may therefore infer that equity funds with lower market risk exposure are catching-up with their counterparts with higher exposure to fluctuation in market conditions. The paper complements the scarce literature on market timing in the mutual fund industry with time-dynamic betas, information asymmetry and an endogeneity-robust empirical approach.
Information Technology & People | 2018
Simplice A. Asongu; Jacinta C. Nwachukwu
This study has examined how information and communication technology (ICT) influences openness to improve the conditions of doing business in sub-Saharan Africa. The data is for the period 2000-2012. ICT is proxied with Internet and mobile phone penetration rates whereas openness is measured in terms of financial and trade globalisation. Ten indicators of doing business are used, namely: (i) cost of business start-up procedures; (ii) procedure to enforce a contract; (iii) start-up procedures to register a business; (iv) time required to build a warehouse; (v) time required to enforce a contract; (vi) time required to register a property; (vii) time required to start a business; (viii) time to export; (ix) time to prepare and pay taxes and (x) time to resolve an insolvency. The empirical evidence is based on Generalised Method of Moments with forward orthogonal deviations. While we find substantial evidence that ICT complements openness to improve conditions for entrepreneurship, the effects are contingent on the dynamics of openness, ICT and entrepreneurship. Theoretical and practical policy implications are discussed. The inquiry is based on two contemporary development concerns: the need for policy to leverage on the ICT penetration potential in the sub-region and the relevance of entrepreneurship in addressing associated issues of population growth such as unemployment.