•This study assesses the mobile phone in the diffusion of knowledge for better governance.•Knowledge diffusion variables are innovation, internet penetration and education.•Political, economic, ...institutional, and general governances are involved.•The mobile phone unconditionally improves governance.•The mobile phone improves governance through knowledge diffusion.
This study assesses the mobile phone in the diffusion of knowledge for better governance in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2000 to 2012. For this purpose we employ Generalised Method of Moments with forward orthogonal deviations. The empirical evidence is based on three complementary knowledge diffusion variables (innovation, internet penetration and educational quality) and 10 governance indicators that are bundled and unbundled. The following are the main findings. First, there is an unconditional positive effect of mobile phone penetration on good governance. Second, the net effects on political, economic, and institutional governances that are associated with the interaction of the mobile phone with knowledge diffusion variables are positive for the most part. Third, countries with low levels of governance are catching-up their counterparts with higher levels of governance. The above findings are broadly consistent with theoretical underpinnings on the relevance of mobile phones in mitigating bad governance in Africa. The evidence of some insignificant net effects and decreasing marginal impacts may be an indication that the mobile phone could also be employed to decrease government quality. Overall, this study has established net positive effects for the most part. Five rationales could elicit the positive net effects on good governance from the interaction between mobile phones and knowledge diffusion, among others, the knowledge variables enhance: reach, access, adoption, cost-effectiveness, and interaction. In a nut shell, the positive net effects are apparent because the knowledge diffusion variables complement mobile phones in reducing information asymmetry and monopoly that create conducive conditions for bad governance. The contribution of the findings to existing theories and justifications of the underlying positive net effects are discussed.
This study assesses if increasing information and communication technology (ICT) enhances inclusive human development in a sample of 49 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2000–2012. The ...empirical evidence present in this study, is based on instrumental variable Tobit regressions, in order to account for simultaneity and the limited range in the dependent variable. In the interest of increasing room for policy implications and controlling for the unobserved heterogeneity, the analysis is decomposed into the fundamental characteristics that human development is based on: income levels, legal origins, religious dominations, political stability, landlockedness and resource-wealth. Our findings show that policies designed to boost ICT (mobile phone, internet, telephone) penetration will increase inclusive development in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda. The degree of positive responsiveness of inclusive development to ICT varies across fundamental characteristics of human development and ICT dynamics. This study finds evidence of synergy in mobile phone penetration and such synergy is driven by non-oil exporting countries. The study has substantial policy relevance because the adoption and/or penetration rate of ICT can be influenced by policy to achieve inclusive development outcomes. Further policy implications are also discussed.
•We assess if increasing ICTs enhance inclusive human development in Sub-Saharan Africa.•The evidence is based on Tobit regressions and fundamentals of human development.•ICTs boost inclusive human development.•The effect varies across fundamentals of human development and ICT specificities.•Evidence of synergy from mobile phones is driven by non-oil exporting countries.
ICT, openness and CO2 emissions in Africa Asongu, Simplice A.
Environmental science and pollution research international,
04/2018, Volume:
25, Issue:
10
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This study investigates how information and communication technology (ICT) complements globalisation in order to influence CO
2
emissions in 44 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period ...2000–2012. ICT is measured with internet penetration and mobile phone penetration whereas globalisation is designated in terms of trade and financial openness. The empirical evidence is based on the generalised method of moments. The findings broadly show that ICT can be employed to dampen the potentially negative effect of globalisation on environmental degradation like CO
2
emissions. Practical, policy and theoretical implications are discussed.
This study examines how increasing ICT penetration in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) can contribute towards environmental sustainability by decreasing CO2 emissions. The empirical evidence is based the ...Generalised Method of Moments and forty-four countries for the period 2000–2012. ICT is measured with internet penetration and mobile phone penetration while CO2 emissions per capita and CO2 emissions from liquid fuel consumption are used as proxies for environmental degradation. The following findings are established: First, from the non-interactive regressions, ICT (i.e. mobile phones and the internet) does not significantly affect CO2 emissions. Second, with interactive regressions, increasing ICT has a positive net effect on CO2 emissions per capita while increasing mobile phone penetration alone has a net negative effect on CO2 emissions from liquid fuel consumption. Policy thresholds at which ICT can change the net effects from positive to negative are computed and discussed. These policy thresholds are the minimum levels of ICT required, for the effect of ICT on CO2 emissions to be negative. Other practical implications for policy and theory are discussed.
•We assess how increasing ICT affects CO2 emissions.•The scope is on forty-four countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2000–2012.•The empirical evidence is based the Generalised Method of Moments.•ICT policy thresholds for reducing CO2 emissions are established and discussed.
The research assesses how information and communication technology (ICT) modulates the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth dynamics in 25 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for ...the period 1980–2014. The employed economic growth dynamics are Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, real GDP and GDP per capita while ICT is measured by mobile phone penetration and internet penetration. The empirical evidence is based on the Generalised Method of Moments. The study finds that both internet penetration and mobile phone penetration overwhelmingly modulate FDI to induce overall positive net effects on all three economic growth dynamics. Moreover, the positive net effects are consistently more apparent in internet-centric regressions compared to “mobile phone”-oriented specifications. In the light of negative interactive effects, net effects are decomposed to provide thresholds at which ICT policy variables should be complemented with other policy initiatives in order to engender favourable outcomes on economic growth dynamics. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
•The research assesses how ICT modulates the effect of FDI on economic growth dynamics.•The focus is on 25 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for the period 1980–2014.•The empirical evidence is based on the Generalised Method of Moments.•ICT modulates FDI to induce overall positive net effects on economic growth dynamics.•Given negative marginal effects, ICT thresholds for complementary policies are provided.
We provide policy-relevant critical masses beyond which, increasing CO
2
emissions negatively affects inclusive human development. This study examines how increasing CO
2
emissions affects inclusive ...human development in 44 sub-Saharan African countries for the period 2000–2012. The empirical evidence is based on fixed effects and Tobit regressions. In order to increase the policy relevance of this study, the dataset is decomposed into fundamental characteristics of inclusive development and environmental degradation based on income levels (low income versus (vs.) middle income); legal origins (English common law vs. French civil law); religious domination (Christianity vs. Islam); openness to sea (landlocked vs. coastal); resource-wealth (oil-rich vs. oil-poor) and political stability (stable vs. unstable). All computed thresholds are within policy range. Hence, above these thresholds, CO
2
emissions negatively affect inclusive human development.
The study assesses the role of financial development on income inequality in a panel of 48 African countries for the period 1996–2014. Financial development is defined in terms of depth (money supply ...and liquid liabilities), efficiency (from banking and financial system perspectives), activity (at banking and financial system levels) and stability while, three indicators of inequality are used, namely, the: Gini coefficient, Atkinson index and Palma ratio. The empirical evidence is based on Generalised Method of Moments. When financial sector development indicators are used exclusively as strictly exogenous variables in the identification process, it is broadly established that with the exception of financial stability, access to credit (or financial activity) and intermediation efficiency have favourable income redistributive effects. The findings are robust to the: control for unobserved heterogeneity in terms of time effects and inclusion of time invariant variables as strictly exogenous variables in the identification process. The findings are also robust to the Kuznets hypothesis: an inverted humped shaped nexus between increasing GDP per capita and inequality. Policy implications are discussed.
While most African economies are primarily sandwiched with the seemingly unsurmountable task of attaining consistent economic growth and unhindered energy supply, the enormous threat posed by ...environmental degradation has further complicated the economic and environmental sustainability drive. In this context, the present study examines the effect of economic growth, urbanization, electricity consumption, fossil fuel energy consumption, and total natural resources rent on pollutant emissions in Africa over the period 1980–2014. By employing selected African countries, the current study relies on the Kao and Pedroni cointegration tests to cointegration analysis, the Pesaran's Panel Pooled Mean Group-Autoregressive distributive lag methodology (ARDL-PMG) for long run regression while Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) is employed for the detection of causality direction among the outlined variables. The study traces long run equilibrium relationships between examined indicators. The ARDL-PMG results suggest a statistical positive relationship between pollutant emissions and urbanization, electricity consumption and non-renewable energy consumption. Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) Granger causality test lends support to the long-run regression results. A bi-directional causality is observed between pollutant emissions, electricity consumption, economic growth and pollutant emissions while a unidirectional causality is apparent between total natural resources rent and pollutant emission. Based on these results, several policy implications for the African continent were suggested. (a) The need for a paradigm shift from fossil fuel sources to renewables is encouraged in the region (b) The need to embrace carbon storage and capturing techniques to decouple pollutant emissions from economic growth on the continent's growth trajectory. Further policy insights are elucidated.
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•Investigation of environmental degradation in selected African countries•Long and short-run pollutant emissions decomposition in Africa•Economic growth-pollutant emission directional causality has a feedback.•Urbanization, electricity consumption and fossil fuel positively impact pollutant emission.•Energy portfolio diversification in Africa is more urgently necessary than ever.
The present research extends Lashitew et al. (2019, RP) in order to understand the greater diffusion of mobile money innovations in Africa. To make this assessment, a comparative analysis is engaged ...between sampled African countries and the corresponding sampled developing countries. Three main types of predictor groups are used for the study, namely: demand, supply and macro-level factors. The empirical evidence is based on Tobit regressions. The tested hypothesis is confirmed because from a comparative analysis between African-specific estimates and those of the sampled countries, not all factors driving mobile money innovations in Africa are apparent in the findings of Lashitew et al. (2019). An extended analysis is also performed to take on board the concern of multicollinearity from which, the best estimators from the study are derived. Comparative findings from correlation analysis show that an African specificity is largely traceable to the ‘unique mobile subscription rate’ variable. An in-depth empirical analysis further confirms an African specificity in the outcome variables (especially in the mobile used to send/receive money) which, may be traceable to informal sector variables not documented in Lashitew et al. (2019). Scholarly and policy implications are discussed.
•The present research extends Lashitew, van Tulder, and Liasse (2019, RP).•It aims to understand the greater diffusion of mobile money innovations in Africa.•The empirical evidence is based on Tobit regressions.•Drivers of mobile money innovations may be traceable to informal sector variables.
This study examines how information and communication technology (ICT) complements carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to influence inclusive human development in forty-four Sub-Saharan African countries ...for the period 2000–2012. ICT is measured with internet penetration and mobile phone penetration. The empirical evidence is based on Generalised Method of Moments. The findings broadly show that ICT can be employed to dampen the potentially negative effect of environmental pollution on human development. We establish that: (i) ICT complements CO2 emissions from liquid fuel consumption to increase inclusive development; (ii) ICT interacts with CO2 intensity to negatively affect inclusive human development and (iii) the net effect on inclusive human development is positive from the complementarity between mobile phones and CO2 emissions per capita. Conversely, we also establish evidence of net negative effects. Fortunately, the corresponding ICT thresholds at which these net negative effects can be completely dampened are within policy range, notably: 50 (per 100 people) mobile phone penetration for CO2 emissions from liquid fuel consumption and CO2 intensity. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.
•We examine how ICT modulates the effect of CO2 emissions on inclusive development.•The scope of the study is 44 sub-Saharan African countries.•The empirical evidence is based on Generalised Method of Moments.•ICT can be used to reduce the negative effect of CO2 emission on inclusive development.•ICT modulating policy thresholds are established.
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