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BackgroundTo my knowledge, there was no systematic study so far that analysed the extent of the impact of improved sanitation on infant mortality in the African context with long years of full-fledged longitudinal data.AimThe aim of this study was to empirically examine the extent to which improved sanitation explains the observed differences in infant mortality under 5 years of age across African countries.SettingThe study covered a panel of 33 countries from north, south, east, west and central Africa for the years 1994–2013.MethodsThe study first conducted Durbin–Wu–Hausman specification test and then used fixed effect model. In addition, Praison–Winsten regression with corrected heteroscedasticity was employed to verify the consistency of the results that were revealed in using fixed effect estimation method.ResultsThe study revealed that a 1% increase in access to improved sanitation would reduce infant mortality by a rate of about two infant deaths per 1000 live births. Also, the study confirmed that a significant decline in infant mortality rate was highly linked to improvements in education, health and sustainable economic growth.ConclusionThe findings have wide implications especially for African countries for which decreasing infant mortality is one of the most crucial priorities in the continent to reverse the current deep-rooted challenges related to human capital formation.

Previous empirical studies on the effects of foreign aid on economic growth have generated mixed results that make it difficult to draw policy recommendations. The main reason for such mixed results is the choice of a single aggregate list of countries, regardless of the disparities in levels of development. This study therefore fills the development gap by disaggregating the African data into a panel of 20 middle-income and 19 low-income African countries over a period of 15 years between 1995 and 2010, and employing a dynamic generalized method of moments (GMM) model to address the dynamic nature of economic growth as well as the problems of endogeneity. The results of this study support the theoretical hypothesis that a positive relationship between aid and GDP growth exists, but only for low-income African countries, not middle-income ones. On the other hand, the study reveals that middle-income African countries tend to experience a greater impact on their economic growth from foreign direct investment (FDI) and natural resources revenues, mainly oil exports. This implies that the frequent criticism that foreign aid has not contributed to economic growth is flawed, at least in the case of low-income African countries. In fact, foreign aid has played a critical role in stimulating economic growth in such countries through supplementing domestic sources of finance such as savings, thus increasing the amount of investment and capital stock in them.

Despite various evidences that show Islamic banking has gained popularity even by non-Muslim consumers and businesses in many parts of the world, there is still a general misconception that consumer's choice for Islamic banking is only influenced by religious obligations and thus it is just a Muslim-only afffair. Yet, our knowledge of consumer motivations for choosing Islamic versus conventional banking services is modest and the research to date is limited and ambiguous on these key issues. Therefore, this study conducts a two-step empirical analyses and fijirst identifijies the factors influencing customer's decision whether to choose Islamic or conventional banking using Linear Probability Model (LPM) and Tobit estimation method, and as a second step, it investigates the main attributing factors to consumers overall level of satisfaction with the services provided by Islamic banks compared to conventional banks using ordinal-logistic regression model. The study was based on a randomly selected 322 bank customers from Bahrain, Jordan, and UAE. The study confijirms that although religious factors such as Shari'a compliance are important, other non-religious factors including better quality of services and information disclosure are also playing crucial roles for the growing consumers' demand for Islamic banking. Nevertheless; factors such as better rate of return, accessibility to credit, and SMS banking are found to be the main signifijicant determinants of consumers' choice and satisfaction with the services provided by conventional banks. Overall, the recent experience especially after the fijinancial crisis of 2008 demonstrates that Islamic banking system can be part of the solution since it is mainly based on stronger regulatory system.

Previous empirical studies on the effects of foreign aid on economic growth have generated mixed results that make it difficult to draw policy recommendations. The main reason for such mixed results is the choice of a single aggregate list of countries, regardless of the disparities in levels of development. This study therefore fills the development gap by disaggregating the African data into a panel of 20 middle-income and 19 low-income African countries over a period of 15 years between 1995 and 2010, and employing a dynamic generalized method of moments (GMM) model to address the dynamic nature of economic growth as well as the problems of endogeneity. The results of this study support the theoretical hypothesis that a positive relationship between aid and GDP growth exists, but only for low-income African countries, not middle-income ones. On the other hand, the study reveals that middle-income African countries tend to experience a greater impact on their economic growth from foreign direct investment (FDI) and natural resources revenues, mainly oil exports. This implies that the frequent criticism that foreign aid has not contributed to economic growth is flawed, at least in the case of low-income African countries. In fact, foreign aid has played a critical role in stimulating economic growth in such countries through supplementing domestic sources of finance such as savings, thus increasing the amount of investment and capital stock in them.

This chapter examines how each element of “good governance infrastructure” may influence the “ease of doing business” for a sample of 41 African countries from 2005 to 2012. The empirical results from GMM and other estimation methods reveal government effectiveness, political stability, rule of law, regulatory quality, and absence of corruption are robust determinants for creating conducive business atmosphere, taking into account other factors such as human capital, physical infrastructure, and the level of development of a country. Nevertheless, no evidence has been found for voice and accountability to significantly affect the ease of doing business. This implies that a government may enhance political stability, rule of law. Government effectiveness and low level of corruption is likely to create a more favorable business atmosphere despite offsetting deficiencies in voice and accountability.

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