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The export-led growth hypothesis (ELGH) postulates that export is a major driver of economic growth. This study tests this hypothesis and further analyses the determinants of exports in the case of West African countries. An annual panel data spanning from 2008 to 2018 was used. Findings from the system GMM and OLS estimations validate the ELGH in West Africa. The results also reveal that foreign direct investment, employment, remittances, land area and infrastructure are significant boosters of export while population, real effective exchange rate and taxes on international trade are detrimental to export performance in the region. The study recommends the relaxation of taxes especially on international trade to encourage businesses that produce to feed the export sectors, provide an enabling environment for businesses and also attract foreign investors. JEL Codes: F14, F21, O55

Purpose
As an effort to support the quest for a stable financial sector, this study aims to determine the factors that contribute to the financial stability gap in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).


Design/methodology/approach
The estimation techniques used include the fixed and random effect, system general methods of moments and dominance analysis. The data used is annual data for 33 SSA countries, covering the period 2007 to 2018.


Findings
Key findings from the analyses indicate that nonperforming loans increase gaps in financial stability while regulatory quality, control of corruption, political stability and appreciation of the local currency reduce the financial stability gap in SSA.


Research limitations/implications
The absence of a specific metric for measuring the financial stability gap appears to be the limitation of this study. Its existence could improve the discussion and also make replicability easier. However, this study relies on a measure introduced by Kulu et al. (2022b), which is also acceptable and quite popular in the literature.


Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first in the finance literature to estimate the determinants of the financial stability gap in SSA.

Purpose
Given the relevance of entrepreneurship in nation-building, studies geared towards the promotion of new businesses are crucial. This study aims to contribute to the finance and entrepreneurship literature by providing empirical evidence on the role ease of doing business plays in promoting new business establishments amidst financial stability.


Design/methodology/approach
The study used the fixed and random effect estimation techniques as well as the impulse response function to analyse annual panel data covering 53 African countries.


Findings
The results indicate that regulatory quality and access to electricity promote new business establishments. Also, to experience the direct effect of financial stability on new business establishments or entrepreneurship in Africa, the role of the ease of doing business cannot be isolated. The policy implication is that the creation of an enabling business environment is crucial for new business establishments.


Research limitations/implications
The sample only includes countries in Africa. Future or further studies may want to expand the sample size and also consider a comparative analysis where this analysis will be done plus another region so that the differences in findings can be known.


Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the role of ease of doing business on new business establishments in the presence of financial stability in Africa.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the effect of government health expenditure on the health of children (under-five mortality rate and prevalence rate of stunting) among West African countries.Design/methodology/approachThe study utilizes heterogeneous panel from the period 1990 to 2018 among 16 West African countries for the analysis. The effect of government health expenditure on under-five mortality rate is measured in per 1,000 live births while that of stunting is measured in percentage. The study employs Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimation technique and Impulse Response Functions (IRFs) for the analysis.FindingsThe results indicate that government health expenditure has negative effect on under-five mortality rate and prevalence rate of stunting in the long-run but not significant in the short-run. In addition, the IRFs result indicates that under-five mortality rate and prevalence rate of stunting both respond negatively to shocks in government health expenditure.Practical implicationsGovernments should ensure that inefficiencies in the public health sector are reduced by licensing the health workers of this sector and allowing independent bodies to appoint the heads of health institutions. This will improve the delivering of health services for the health of children.Originality/valuePrevious studies carried out have not examined the short-run and long-run effects of the relationship under study among West African countries.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2022-0212

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to examine the effects of disability on access to financial services in Ghana. Data for the study were obtained from the seventh wave of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 7). We used an instrumental variable (IV) regression approach to examine the effect of disability on the use of formal financial institutions and mobile money. We find that the likelihood of having access to finances and using any of the financial institutions, or having at least a product/service with a bank reduces for people with disability. Further, our results show that while people with disability are less likely to use commercial banks (6.3%), rural banks (4.8%) and at least one financial service (6.3%), they are 53.7% more likely to use mobile money. Collaborative actions are needed to raise awareness on both mobile money and other Fintech solutions, as well as accessibility functions that can support the inclusion of persons with disabilities into the financial system.