This study uses survey data of over 22 000 respondents in Nigeria, to provide evidence for the impact of two key drivers of financial inclusion: financial literacy and income levels. The study shows that financial literacy significantly determines savings patterns with formal and informal financial institutions; however, income only drives the frequency of informal savings. The results also highlight the demographic groups suitable for financial literacy and other interventions aimed at improving financial access. The findings will support the market segmentation capabilities of financial services providers and also guide regulators in formulating policies that will improve and deepen financial access. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper provides empirical evidence for the relative importance of industry and firm-level factors as determinants of firm performance. It also shows the relevance of the individual factors at both industry and firm levels. The paper therefore attempts to provide evidence for effects of industry and business-specific factors on firm performance using data from a developing economy. The study uses the financial and other organization-specific data of firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The findings show that organization-specific factors are relatively more important than the industry factors, accounting for 66.58 percent of the variation in return on asset with little or no evidence for the effects of industry-level factors on return on asset. Financial leverage, firm size and firm growth rate are shown to be the most relevant firm-level factors. Firm-level factors also accounts for slightly more variance in Tobin’s Q than the industry factors.The results also show that the industry sector of the firm is the most relevant industry-level determinant of firm market performance. There is however little or no evidence for the effects of both industry- and firm-level factors on return on equity.

This paper argues that real options approach presents a better valuation approach for valuing infrastructure investments when compared to traditional discounted cash flow approach. Managerial flexibilities, in various forms of real options, can be incorporated into infrastructure projects to expand the projects’ values. The paper identifies two key types of real options present in infrastructure investments as time-to-build and growth options and extends an earlier developed closed-form option valuation formula to value these options. The paper uses a numerical case of investment in railroad infrastructure project and shows that both types of real options, when embedded in infrastructure projects, add values to the projects. It however shows that the value of growth option is far more than the value of time-to-build option as growth options create opportunities for follow-on investments. It also shows that when the two options are present in an infrastructure investment, the time-to-build real option interacts with the growth option to reduce the latter’s value.

This paper provides evidence for the relationship between various forms of real options in infrastructure projects and the types and levels of government supports to the infrastructure investments. It analyzes the common real options and real options-based strategic investments and aligns them with the common types of public-private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects. It then develops models to show that the real options incorporated into the different types of PPP infrastructure projects affect the level of direct government cash supports to the projects and hence the viabilities of such projects. The paper however shows that the relationship between the embedded real options and viabilities of infrastructure projects can be influenced by such factors as contract period and percentage of private sector contributions to the projects.