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PurposeThe increasing debate on the viability of broad-based productive employment in stimulating the participatory tendencies of growth makes it instructive to inquire how the African “Big Five” have fared in their quests to ensure growth inclusiveness through public investment-led fiscal policy.Design/methodology/approachTime varying structures and nonlinearities in the government investment series are captured through the non-linear autoregressive distributed lag, asymmetric impulse responses and variance decomposition estimation techniques.FindingsStudy findings show that positive investment shocks stimulate growth inclusiveness by enabling access to opportunities through job creation and productive employment for the populace; this result is evident for Morocco and Algeria. However, there is a non-negligible evidence that shocks due to decline in the government investment manifest in insufficient capital stocks and limited investment opportunities, impede access to opportunities by the populace, hinder labour employability and make growth less inclusive. Furthermore, all short-run findings corroborate long-run results regarding the reaction of inclusive growth to positive investment shocks with the exclusion of South Africa; which, unlike its long-run finding, shows that shocks due to increases in investment can foster growth inclusiveness. Also, in respect to short-run negative investment shocks, Nigeria is the only country that does not align its long-run findings.Practical implicationsThat public investment shocks make or mar inclusive growth effectiveness shows the need for appropriate fiscal policy consolidation and automatic stabilization guidelines to ensure buffers against shocks and to enhance government investment generation efficiency for a sustainable inclusive growth process that is more participatory in Africa.Originality/valueThis study is the first to accommodate possibilities of shocks in the inclusivity of growth analysis for the five biggest African economies which jointly account for over half of the recorded growth in the continent. As such, there is quantitative evidence that government investment is a potent determinant of growth inclusiveness and it is susceptible to structural changes and time variation of shocks.

PurposeThe study examines the dynamic relationship among globalisation, income inequality and poverty in Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey (MINT countries) between 1980 and 2018.Design/methodology/approachA Bayesian vector autoregressive (BVAR) approach is used as a technique of estimation hanging on the fact that the method uses prior distribution for the estimated parameters.FindingsThe results show that globalisation is a strong predictor of itself in all the MINT countries only in the short run. In the long run, income inequality and poverty strongly influence globalisation, respectively, in Indonesia and Turkey, while globalisation still has more impact on itself in Nigeria. Income inequality has a strong endogenous impact on itself in Mexico and Indonesia over the time horizon, whereas globalisation and poverty are strong predictors of income inequality in the long run in Nigeria and Turkey, respectively. Also, poverty strongly influences itself in all the MINT countries in all the periods, meaning that poverty begets itself in all the MINT countries, except for Indonesia in the long run.Practical implicationsThe study suggests that all the MINT countries should ensure political stability and a strong institutional framework to gain from the process of globalisation and to experience reductions in the levels of income inequality and poverty.Originality/valueThis study is distinct from other studies in the sense that an overall globalisation index (GBI) as used by Dreher et al. (2008) is used for the globalisation variable, and the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is used to capture poverty in all the MINT countries. Also, the research paper uses a BVAR approach as against the classical VAR, and this helps in solving over-fitting problems.

This study analyzed the macroeconomic and institutional determinants of total factor productivity (TFP) in the MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey) countries during the period 1980–2014. Annual data covering the period between 1980 and 2014 were used. Data on real gross domestic product (real GDP), labor force, gross fixed capital formation, foreign direct investment (FDI), human capital, and inflation were sourced from the World Development Indicators published by the World Bank. Also, data on corruption, government stability, and law and order were obtained from the database of International Country Risk Guide. Panel autoregressive distributed lag (PARDL) regression technique was used to estimate the model. Results showed that TFP growth rate declined on average by 1.4 per cent and 1.8 per cent in Mexico and Turkey, respectively, while Indonesia and Nigeria did not experience productivity growth on the average. Results also showed that in the long run, human capital and government stability had positive and significant effects on TFP, while FDI and corruption had negative but significant effects on TFP. In the short run, there existed a significant negative relationship between TFP and inflation. However, the effects of human capital and corruption on TFP were positive and significant. The study concluded that human capital and corruption were key drivers of TFP in the MINT countries both in the long run and short run.

Human capital development is seen as a focal point for pivoting industrial development, for reducing the level of unemployment and increasing the supply of entrepreneurs in any economy. However, the effect of human capital on sustainable industrial development in Nigeria has not been adequately explored. In view of various policies adopted by successive governments to advance industrialization in Nigeria, the study examined the effect human capital development has had on industrial growth in the light of various factors that could have shaped industrial performance. In addition, the different educational enrollment rates were examined to find out if any significant positive impact will be felt in the industrial sector. Time series data covering the period between 1980 and 2010 were used with an appropriate econometric technique. It was discovered that human capital has to a large extent impacted on industry value-added, but in terms of output generated industrially, the effect of human capital remains low in Nigeria.

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The objective of this study was to examine the causal relationship between foreign direct investment and economic growth in Nigeria using annual data covering the period 1970 to 2002. The study employed the Granger causality procedure to test the direction of causality between foreign direct investment and economic growth for the Nigerian economy. The endogenous production function was derived to accommodate foreign investment and other domestic policies that could influence growth and foreign investment. The study found a one-way causality between from foreign direct investment to economic growth. The implication arising from this study is that Nigeria should adopt policy whereby FDI is attracted to promote economic growth.