Suchergebnisse

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the correlations between mobile banking and inclusive development (poverty and inequality) in 93 developing countries for the year 2011.


Design/methodology/approach
Mobile banking entails the following: "mobile phones used to pay bills" and "mobile phones used to receive/send money", while the modifying policy indicator includes the human development index (HDI). The data are decomposed into seven sub-panels based on two fundamental characteristics: regions (Latin America, Asia and the Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, and Middle East and North Africa) and income levels (upper middle income, lower middle income and low income).


Findings
The 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: poverty in lower-middle-income countries (LMIC), upper-middle-income countries (UMIC) and Latin American (LA) countries, respectively, at HDI thresholds of 0.725, 0.727 and 0.778 and 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: poverty in LMIC, UMIC and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries with corresponding HDI thresholds of 0.631, 0.750 and 0.750 and inequality in UMIC, CEE and LA at HDI thresholds of 0.665, 0.736 and 0.726, respectively.


Practical implications
The findings are discussed in the light of current policy challenges in the transition from the UN's Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable Development Goals.


Originality/value
The authors have exploited the only macroeconomic data on mobile banking currently available.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how information and communication technology (ICT) influences openness to improve the conditions of doing business in sub-Saharan Africa.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected 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: cost of business start-up procedures; procedure to enforce a contract; start-up procedures to register a business; time required to build a warehouse; time required to enforce a contract; time required to register a property; time required to start a business; time to export; time to prepare and pay taxes; and time to resolve an insolvency. The empirical evidence is based on generalised method of moments with forward orthogonal deviations.FindingsWhile the authors 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.Originality/valueThe 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.

We model core demands for better governance (political, economic and institutional), more employment and less consumer price inflation using a methodological innovation on the complete elimination of cross-country differences in signals susceptible of sparking social revolts. The empirical evidence based on 14 MENA countries show that the Arab Spring was predictable in 2007 to occur between January 2011 and April 2012. While the findings predict the wave of cross-country revolutions with almost mathematical precision, caveats and cautions are discussed for the scholar to understand the expositional dimensions of the empirics.

The study investigates critical masses or thresholds of educational quality at which the diffusion of information with mobile phones enhances inclusive human development. The empirical evidence is based on simultaneity-robust Fixed Effects regressions with data from 49 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 2000-2012. The following findings are established: (1) There are positive marginal and net effects on inclusive development from the interaction between mobile phones and educational quality, (2) Between 10 and 27 pupils per teacher is needed in primary education in order for mobile phones to enhance inclusive human development, (3) From a comparative dimension: (i) English Common law countries enjoy higher net effects compared to their French Civil law counterparts, (ii) positive net effects are more obvious in politically stable (vis-à-vis politically unstable) countries, (iii) positive net impacts are also more apparent in resource-poor (vis-à-vis resource-rich) countries, (iv) low income (vis-à-vis higher income) countries have a higher net effect on inclusive development, (v) landlocked (vis-à-vis unlandlocked) countries experience higher net effects and (iv) Islam-dominated countries have a slightly higher net impact compared to their Christian-oriented counterparts.

This study investigates how terrorism affects governance in 53 African countries for the period 1998-2012. Four terrorism indicators are used namely: domestic, transnational, unclear and total terrorism. Ten bundled and unbundled governance indicators are also employed namely: political governance (consisting of political stability and voice and accountability), economic governance (encompassing government effectiveness and regulation quality); institutional governance (entailing corruption-control and the rule of law) and general governance. The governance indicators are bundled by means of principal component analysis. The empirical evidence is based on Generalized Method of Moments. Three key findings are established. First, all selected terrorism dynamics negatively affect political governance and its constituents. Second, evidence of a negative relationship is sparingly apparent in economic governance and its components. Third, no proof was confirmed in relation to the impact of terrorism and institutional governance with its elements. Fourth, compared with domestic terrorism, transnational terrorism more negatively and significantly affects political, economic and general governances. Policy implications are discussed.

This study uses a new dataset to provide comparative gaps, benchmarking with best performers and policy syndromes of growth quality in 93 developing countries with data for the period 1990-2011. Sigma and Beta estimation strategies are used to provide between and within cross-country dispersions. The empirical evidence is based on: time, regions, income levels, resource-wealth, state fragility and time-consistent growth quality (GQ) performance. First, for 'within dispersions' the following outcomes are established: (1) GQ dispersions within fundamental characteristics have been decreasing over time, (2) From a time-dynamic view, countries within Asia and the Pacific have experienced the highest reduction in GQ differences while nations in the Middle East and North Africa (Central and Eastern European) region have witnessed the highest (lowest) differences, (3) From an income perspective, upper-middle-income (Low-income) countries have the lowest (highest) differences in GQ. (4) Resource-rich and Non-fragile countries have higher differences relative to their Resource-poor and Fragile counterparts respectively. Second, for 'between dispersions' and policy syndromes, we found two time-consistent extremities. (1) In decreasing need of policy intervention, the following are apparent for the Policy syndrome extreme: Hopeful, Fragile, Sub-Saharan African, Low-income and Resource-rich countries. (2) In the same line of policy inference, the following are apparent for the Syndrome-free extreme: Central and Eastern European, Asia and the Pacific, Latin American, Best Performing and Upper-middle-income countries. Their predispositions are clarified and policy implications discussed.

The study investigates how openness influences information and communication technology (ICT) penetration for improved government quality in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2000-2012. Openness is measured in terms of trade and financial globalisation whereas ICT is proxied with mobile phone and internet penetration rates. Ten bundled and unbundled governance indicators are used. The empirical evidence is based on Generalised Method of Moments with forward orthogonal deviations. The main findings are: First, financial openness has an edge over trade openness when combined with ICT to affect both economic and institutional governance. Second, mobile phones have an edge over internet penetration in complementing (i) trade openness for economic governance and (ii) financial openness for institutional governance. Third, net effects on political governance are consistently negative. Taken together, in the short-run, openness-driven ICT policies are more rewarding in terms of economic and institutional governance than political governance. Fourth, catch-up in governance is facilitated by the interaction between openness and ICT. Contributions of these findings to literature are discussed.

This article assesses the effect of political institutions on stock market performance in 14 African countries for which stock market data are available for the period 1990–2010. The estimation technique used is a two-stage least-squares instrumental variable methodology. Political regime channels of democracy, polity and autocracy are instrumented with legal-origins, religious-legacies, income-levels and press-freedom qualities to account for stock market performance dynamics of capitalisation, value traded, turnover and number of listed companies. The findings show that countries with democratic regimes enjoy higher levels of financial market development compared to their counterparts with autocratic inclinations. As a policy implication, the role of sound political institutions has important effects on both the degree of competition for public office and the quality of public offices that favour stock market development on the African continent.

This article examines interconnections between law, politics, and the quality of government in Africa. We investigate whether African democracies enjoy relatively better government quality (GQ) compared to their counterparts with more autocratic inclinations. The empirical evidence is based on instrumental variable two‐stage least squares and fixed effects with data from 38 African countries for the period 1994‐2010. Political regimes of democracy, polity, and autocracy are instrumented with income levels, legal origins, religious dominations, and press freedom to account for the GQ dynamics of corruption control, government effectiveness, voice and accountability, political stability, regulation quality, and the rule of law. Findings show that democracy has an edge over autocracy while the latter and polity overlap. As a policy implication, democracy once initiated should be accelerated to edge the appeals of authoritarian regimes.Related Articles

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Related Media

Moyo, Dambisa. 2013. "." TED Talks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v = 4Q2aznfmcYU