Abstract While countries around the world have experienced unprecedented shifts in their population age structures over the last 70 years, it has only really been over the last 20 years that research into the impact of the structure of the population on the economy has gained momentum. Analytically, it is the recognition that engagement in the economy and the resulting economic ows between individuals vary with age that underpins this impact: children consume more than they produce; prime wor...
Abstract This thesis discusses reward bundling as a process that enables decision makers to self-regulate their choice behavior. Most empirical work on intertemporal choice has focused on analyzing impulsive choice. Less effort has been dedicated to explanations of how individuals manage to overcome self-defeating behavior. This thesis evaluates the theory of reward bundling. It presents a set of econometric tools that can be employed to investigate whether actual choice behavior is consiste...
Abstract This thesis consists of three different essays-organized as different chapters-that deal with empirical as well as theoretical aspects of the economics of retirement. The first essay contributes to the theoretical life-cycle literature by analyzing in depth the role of retirement date expectations in determining saving behavior. As our main contribution, we demonstrate that the magnitude of the reaction of consumption and saving behavior of younger individuals to a change in the ret...
ABSTRACT Researchers and policy makers agree that studying the relationship between school quality and academic achievement will benefit public investment in education. An important turning point in educational delivery in Africa came during the 1990 World Conference on Education for All where renewed commitments to quality basic education were made. Against this background, interest in how African education systems are progressing has increased. This thesis contributes to this understanding ...
Contents Contents ..................................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter I: Introduction to the Problem ....................................................................................... 4 The Role of the Labour Market in Poverty and Inequality ................................................ 5 The Costs of Unemployment ....................................................................................
ABSTRACT Commercialization has potential of enabling rural households to advance in vegetable production through better access to financial services, and enriched market coordination and participation. In recent years, there have been efforts to boost vegetable commercialization particularly among smallholder female farmers in Kilifi County. Since risk attitudes vary from male to female farmers, the differences in risks and risk perceptions of farmers may in part explain the unwillingn...
ABSTRACT The challenge of agricultural finance is to securely provide cost-effective financing to rural smallholder farmers with minimum risk of fraud and maximum accountability and transparency. Mobile money payments by farmers can provide the transactional volume economics for creating an ecosystem that can be subsequently leveraged on branchless banking distribution channel for mobile banking credit, savings and micro insurance products. Mobile money is simple, convenient, affordable and d...
ABSTRACT Teachers are an important human resource in the teaching and learning processes and their training and utilization therefore requires critical consideration. The education sector in Kenya faces many challenges, including escalating teacher wage bill, teacher shortages in schools alongside surpluses in the labour market, inequitable distribution and inefficient utilization of teachers. There is therefore the need for a framework for projecting and relating demand to the supply in orde...
This study empirically explored the effect of East African Community (EAC) integration on intra-EAC trade, as reflected by the level of exports, of the East African Community member states over the period 1980- 2012. This time period captured the pre and post EAC eras. Most empirical studies on Regional Integration investigate whether the Gravity Model hold for trading partners. Others investigate the effect of tariffs and other trade barriers on trade but this study considered the influence ...
ABSTRACT A key policy objective ofsustainable economic development, especially in any developing country like Nigeria, is to establish energy development paths that are both economically e.f .f icient and sustainable. However, this depends significantly 012 full utilization ofsuch resources. This resear~hw ork adopts an econometric approach to evaluate both the impact and the sustainability of Gas utilization in the Nigerian economy. Also, it examines the structure ofgas flaring in N...
ABSTRACT This study investigated the effect of exchange rate on Nigeria’s non-oil sector outputs, with emphasis on the agricultural, manufactural and service sectors over a period of 1970-2012 through the co integration and the ECM approach. The co integration test showed that there was a long run relationship between the variables. Evidence suggested that exchange rate by has a negative non-significant effect on the agricultural and manufacturing sectors and a nonsignificant positive...
ABSTRACT The primary motive of a minimum wage policy is to provide a wage floor for low income earners and improve their welfare. In Nigeria, real minimum wage declined by 83.0% between 1974 and 2010, thus lowering the welfare of workers. Low skilled relative to high skilled workers’ wages also declined from 29.0% in 1991 to 11.0% in 2007. While there is a growing body of literature on the direct effects of minimum wage, there have been little attempts to investigate its indirect welfare a...
Abstract The second West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ), comprising The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, was initiated in 1999 to fast-track the common monetary policy objective of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). However, uncertainties about the economic implications of the policy have been major obstacles to regional integration. Economists and policymakers are yet to agree on the potential costs and benefits of a common currency. Available empirical st...
ABSTRACT A general way of evaluating the economic welfare of country is through its household per capita expenditure. Thus, the major purpose for this study is to investigate how the recent financial deepening processes in Nigeria have impacted on aggregate welfare. Private per capita consumption expenditure is used to measure aggregate welfare in this study which serves as a macroeconomic measure of indicators of aggregate welfare. Financial deepening can affect aggregate welfare in various...
ABSTRACT In line with the search for the real determinant of economic growth, this work sought to analyze the impact of institutional quality, government expenditure on economic growth, using a panel data analysis for four selected West African Countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso) from 2005 to 2013. The study found a positive and significant relationship between some institutions – economic institutions, on economic growth whereas political institutions showed a n...