This study examined the regional differences in the role of wealth and mothers' educational attainment in explaining infant and child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Specifically, this study investigates the role of wealth and mothers' educational attainment in urban-rural and regional differences of SSA. We use data from Demographic and Health Surveys and the World Bank African Development Indicators to document these regional differences in infant and child mortality rates in SSA. Our findings show small variability in the risk of infant and child mortality attributable to regional differences in SSA. There is a statistically negative significant difference in infant and child mortality with urban dwellers compared to rural dwellers in SSA. Also, we found the risk of infant and child mortality to be correlated with per capita gross domestic product equal to or greater than five hundred US dollars ($500). Our findings show mother's education to be negatively correlated with infant and child mortality in SSA. These findings give credence to previous studies which highlighted the significance of wealth, education of the mother, and location in explaining infant and child mortality differences in SSA. Our study finds no evidence of a statistically significant difference in the risk of infant and child mortality between the urban poorest and poorer wealth quintile households and their rural counterparts in SSA.

We analyze infant and under-5 mortality trends in Nigeria using data from the demographic and health surveys (DHS) of 2003 and 2008. We use pooled data to enable us carry out logistic regression analysis at the state level and allow for robustness of our results. Our analysis shows wide disparities in both infant and under-5 mortality rates in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria and the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja. Furthermore, the results show highly significant differences in infant and under-5 mortality rates among the six geopolitical zones and among the 36 states of Nigeria. Our result shows that urban advantage over rural areas in under-5 mortality rate only exist among the richest quintiles in Nigeria. We find no evidence of statistically significant difference between the urban poorest and poorer quintiles and the rural poorest and poorer quintiles in both infant and under-5 mortality in Nigeria. We find wealth, educational attainment of the mother, the use of health facility, religion, gender of a child, and number of births in the last 3 years to be highly correlated with infant and under-5 mortality in Nigeria. Both infant and under-5 mortality rates declined between 2003 and 2008 in Nigeria.

The prevailing notion for this research is anchored on determining the magnitude of alliances as trade determinants. Alliances are segregated into defence pact, non-aggressive alliance and entente, which additionally integrates as trade cost in a gravity model. The Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood technique is adopted for the analysis with country pair-effects exploited.Even though literature acknowledged three different kinds of alliance formation, the homogenous effects as trade cost have not been previously examined. Authors found that alliances' response to bilateral trade is homogenous irrespective of conceptualization and operationalism. All categories of alliance positively influence bilateral trade but could be more effective as trade determinant when rooted in a regional trade agreement. The result is more convincing in the NATO sample than the ECOWAS sample, which could not be unconnected with the level of economic and technological development in both cases. Militarized inter-state conflict should be discouraged irrespective of the cause due to its negative effect on bilateral trade, especially in the region of its occurrence.

The impact of military spending on domestic output is contentious and therefore requires further analysis on a country by country basis to determine its level of significance. Nigeria's military contributions to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sub-region and the recent rise of various insurgencies, particularly, Jamāʿat Ahl al-Sunna lil-Daʿawah wa al-Jihād' (Boko Haram)-arguably the most fatal insurgent group-has increased Nigeria's military expenditure. This study investigates the impact of this increase in military spending on the economic well-being (measured by GDP per capita) of Nigerians using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to co-integration for the period from 1988 to 2017. The results suggest that there is a positive relationship between military spending and economic well-being in Nigeria. However, the impact on citizens' wellbeing is not instantaneous as the variable is only significant after the current year spending; which does not last longer than a year. The study therefore recommends that defense spending be strategic, and that all earmarked funds for defense be deployed appropriately so that increases in wellbeing can be more long-term as opposed to lasting for only one year. Contribution/Originality: This study contributes to existing literature on military spending and growth. This study uses an adapted model.

We examine the effect of public debt on private investment in selected emerging economies. Using a panel threshold regression model, we estimate a threshold value of about 3 percent, on average, below which public debt stimulates private investment. Our additional analysis involving selected developed economies suggests that the crowding out effect is less evident relative to the emerging economies as higher public debt stocks do not seem to significantly undermine their private investments. These results have implications for debt sustainability and maintaining a reasonable public debt–GDP ratio is crucial for sustainable investment growth.