Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of external debt and corruption on economic growth in the selected five Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, from 1990 to 2015. Design/methodology/approach Panel unit root and panel cointegration tests are employed to test for stationarity of the series and the long-run relationship, respectively. Fully modified OLS and dynamic OLS techniques are also employed to examine the long-run coefficients of the variables of the model, as well as panel Granger causality test, in order to examine the direction of causality among the variables. Findings The results indicate that there is a negative relationship between external debt and economic growth, as well as a bi-directional causality between the two variables. The findings also indicate a positive relationship between corruption and economic growth, as well as a uni-directional causality running from economic growth through corruption. Research limitations/implications The study recommends that the governments of the selected countries should address the menace of rising external debt through the adoption of other sources of capital for investment. Such include more openness of the economy for more capital, by easing restrictions on genuine imports and exports of valuable goods and services. It also suggests that the issue of corruption be tackled head-on, by such penalties that tend to make corruption less attractive. Originality/value While the relationship between economic growth and external debt, on the one hand, and corruption and economic growth, on the other hand, have received considerable attentions, the trio of external debt, corruption and economic growth have not been found combined in a model, to the best of the authors’ knowledge. Also, the countries under consideration, who jointly account for about 47 percent of the entire SSA countries’ stock of external debt, have not been jointly found in any recent panel studies involving the selected variables.

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PurposeThis paper measures the impacts of foreign direct investment (FDI), globalisation and political governance on economic growth in West Africa. The empirical analysis also includes the interaction effect of political governance and FDI on the growth of the sub-region, over the period of 1996–2016.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs the autoregressive distributed lag technique on data obtained from the World Bank and the KOF institute.FindingsThe study findings suggest a positive relationship between globalisation and political governance on economic growth. Even though there have been inconclusive results on the FDI–growth nexus, the authors found that FDI stimulates the growth of the sub-region, while political governance enhances the positive impact of FDI on economic growth. The other factors of growth included are labour, capital and government size, whose effects on growth are, respectively, negative, negative and positive.Practical implicationsThe governments of the West African countries promote policies that attract FDI into the sub-region, so that economic performances may be enhanced. In addition, the governments of the West African sub-region should work to reap the benefits of globalisation, by promoting the competitiveness of their local economies in order to keep pace with the global markets. Finally, the political-governance infrastructures should be overhauled; the culture of accountability and transparency should be promoted, while all efforts should be made to improve stability in the political environment in order to increase investors' confidence in the West African economy.Originality/valueThis study is the first to single out the impacts of political governance, as categorised by the World Bank, through both direct and interactive measures. This is necessary in view of the assertion that political governance largely accounts for improved economic performance in an economy. The use of the Pesaran (2007) technique of unit root is also a deviation from existing studies. This is in view of the fact that it tests variable unit root in the presence of cross-sectional dependence; thus, controlling for contemporaneous correlation which was not considered in the first-generation tests.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship among fertility, female education and female labour participation in ASEAN-7 countries: Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Myanmar, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand, between 1990 and 2015. The choice of these countries is informed by their economic, social and political importance in the ASEAN Bloc; while Indonesia boasts of the largest population in ASEAN, Brunei and Malaysia boast of relatively advanced economies, in GDP terms. Design/methodology/approach Pesaran’s test of panel unit root in the presence of cross-sectional dependence was employed to test for the stationarity properties of the series. The dynamic long-run coefficients of the variables were examined using the pooled mean group, common correlated effect and dynamic OLS techniques, while the Granger causality test was used to estimate the direction of causality among the variables. Findings The findings indicate that there is both negative and positive relationship between fertility and labour force participation, with causality running from labour force participation through fertility – on the one hand, and between education and labour force participation, with no causality between the two – on the other hand. Research limitations/implications The study, therefore, upholds the role incompatibility and societal response hypothesis, as well as human capital and opportunity cost theories. Practical implications The appropriate policies are those that gear the countries’ fertility decisions towards the societal response hypothesis in order to enhance human capital development and increase productivity. This implies that the governments of ASEAN-7 countries should ease hindrances on a balanced combination of family-care and workforce participation on married women in view of the gender-wage gap created by female work apathy, which largely reduces domestic productivities. Appropriate policies in this direction include rising availability and affordability of childcare facilities, incentives for women higher education, attitudinal changes towards job-participating mothers, as well as legislated paid parental leaves which have balanced the, hitherto, incompatibility between work and childbearing. Originality/value Except for Abdullah et al. (2013), the authors have no knowledge of other authors who have worked on this relationship in the chosen ASEAN countries. This study is, however, an improvement upon that of Abdullah et al. (2013) in different ways, one of which is that it considers seven ASEAN countries, thus making the results more valid representation of the ASEAN Bloc. Furthermore, the Pesaran (2007) technique of unit root testing has not been found in any recent literature on the subject-matter. This technique, being a second-generation test, tests variable unit root in the presence of cross-sectional dependence.