Volume 32 (2022): Edizione 3 (September 2022)

The question of whether developing countries should pursue specialization or diversification in export as a driver of sustainable economic growth has been a subject of an intense debate in economic literature. At present, one understanding of the debate, as postulated by Imbs and Wacziarg (2003), is that economies grow through two stages of diversification and concentration as income grows: they initially diversify but re-specialize once a (relatively) high level of income per capita is attained. A U-shaped curve best explains the notion. With Nigeria as a reference country, we employed ARDL procedure and examined the aforementioned exposition over the period 1960-2019. Specifically, the non-monotonic relationship between diversification and growth is examined. In furtherance, we examined the impact of diversification on the effect of non-oil exports on growth. Employing an augmented production-function framework and two distinct measures of diversification, we find, contrary to the Imbs-Wacziarg notion, a monotonic (increasing) relationship between diversification and growth, suggesting that diversification, rather than specialization, continues with growth. Applying a similar framework and five different measures of non-oil exports, we find that the impact of diversification on the effects of agricultural and industrial sectors on growth is higher, as compared to building and construction, wholesale and retail, services sectors.

The overall objective of the study is to investigate the impact of governance on financial development in Sub-Saharan African countries. To achieve the stated objective, the study employed balanced data of 43 Sub-Saharan African countries during the year 2002 to 2018. To analyze the data, the study used both the fixed and random effect estimation approaches and explored the relationship between the three dimensions of governance and three pillars of financial development in Sub-Saharan African countries. The study also applied the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to create indexes for the political, economic, and institutional dimensions of governance taking the six world governance indicators. The overall findings of the study indicate that the political, economic, and overall governance composite index has a positive and significant impact on the overall financial developments of sub-Saharan African countries. The development of financial institutions in the region is influenced significantly and positively by political, institutional, and overall governance. In addition, the economic dimension of governance has had a significant and positive impact on the development of the financial markets in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, trade openness, real interest rate, inflation, real GDP, and access to electricity are all major macroeconomic predictors of financial development, according to the study. As a result, all aspects of governance quality in the Sub-Saharan African countries must be improved. This can be achieved by policies aimed at strengthening voice and accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, corruption control, and overall macroeconomic reform.

This study investigates the determinants of dividend pay-out of listed firms in Pakistan from the year 2011 to 2015. The focus of the study is the life cycle theory of dividends, agency theory and signaling theory. Corporate governance indicators, firm efficiency and cash flow volatility are the main determinants used in this study. This study also includes eight corporate governance indicators namely insider ownership, ownership concentration, institutional ownership, board independence, board size, CEO duality, audit committee independence and remuneration committee. It is found that ownership concentration, institutional ownership, CEO duality, firm efficiency and cash flow volatility are the significant determinants of dividend pay-out in Pakistan. It is also found that growth opportunities significantly moderate the impact of ownership concentration, institutional ownership, CEO duality, firm efficiency, cash flow volatility on the dividend pay-out. This research is among the pioneer studies which examine the impact of firm efficiency on dividend pay-out. Likewise, the study is among the first attempts to incorporate growth opportunities as moderating variable in the relationship between corporate governance indicators, firm efficiency and cash flow volatility with dividend pay-out. Results show that the management of an efficient firm pays a high dividend to increase its reputation in the market. Furthermore, the negative signaling effect of dividend omission may not exist for efficient firms. It implies that efficient firms at their growth stage may also skip dividends.

This study examines the determinants of international tourism demand in India using time series data from 1991-2019 from the top 15 source tourist countries. To do this, the study employed an augmented gravity model estimated using a two-step panel fixed-effect model to identify the factors affecting tourism demand in India. These factors include the income of both India and its origin countries. The domestic exchange rate of both India and the source country is included to capture the impact of the cost of living and prices of goods and services. Supporting variables like distance, common border, and common language between India and source of origin country were also identified. Further, it includes the impact of similarity and common membership to SAARC. Empirical results indicate that the level of Indian income, language, and similarity have a positive impact on tourism inflow to India. On the other hand distance and the domestic exchange rate of India have negative impacts. Further, the income level of origin countries has a significant positive impact. Also, common membership to SAARC and the common border between India and the origin country have a significant positive impact on tourism demand in India. Furthermore, international demand for Indian tourism is not affected by the relative price in the origin country.

Employees have physical and emotional needs so the wellbeing of the workforce cannot be overlooked. This study examined the effect of employee benefits on business growth using a sample of ten consumer goods companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The panel data used in this study is from the annual report of the individual companies from 2012-2019 and was analyzed using the Eviews. The study carried out descriptive statistics with undistorted original data; tests such as Pearson correlation and the variance inflation factor were also performed. Finally, the Pesaran CD test was used to check the cross-sectional dependence before estimating the panel regression, which corrected the cross-sectional dependence with Period SUR. The Fixed Effect regression result showed that gratuity, pension and medical allowance, which were the measures of employee benefits, had a positive significant effect on organizational growth (measured in terms of assets), The study, therefore, concludes that employee benefits in the consumer goods sector have a positive and significant effect on business growth, with the exception of the medical allowance. Therefore, the study recommends that business organizations trying to get the most out of employees for growth should initiate and improve the payment of benefits to employees and initiate and improve pension payment.