Purpose: Enhancing household consumption and reducing inequality are among the fundamental goals of many developing countries. The purpose of this study therefore is to disaggregate household consumption expenditure into food and non-food and, thus, decompose inequality into within- and between-groups. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopts generalised entropy (GE) measures. Second, the study uses regression-based inequality decomposition to ascertain the determinants of inequality in food and non-food expenditure using household demographic and socioeconomic characteristics as covariates. Findings: The results show that non-food expenditure is the major source of inequality in household consumption expenditure in both urban and rural areas with inequality coefficients of above 0.6 compared to about 0.4 for food expenditure. The decompositions also show that within-group inequalities for non-food and food expenditure are, respectively, 0.97 and 0.365 using the Theil index, while between-group inequalities for non-food and food are, respectively, 0.016 and 0.035. Furthermore, the regression-based inequality decompositions show that variables such as living in rural areas, household size, household dwelling and household dwelling characteristics account for the significant proportion of inequality in food and non-food expenditure. Originality/value: The policy implication of the findings, among others, is that policies should focus on addressing inequality within rural and urban areas, especially with respect to non-food expenditure than in inequality existing between urban and rural areas. These non-food expenditures include expenditure in education, health, energy, accommodation, water and sanitation.

The present study intends to investigate how the complexity of the economy responds to human capital investment and institutional development in Africa by employing the system GMM on panel data comprising 31 African economies over the period 2011-2020. However, earlier studies tended to ignore these interdependencies. More critically, our results indicate that the development of human capital enables the economic complexity in Africa. On the other hand, governance institutions’ quality in terms of control of corruption, voice and accountability, political stability, and the absence of violence and terrorism do not have any impact on economic complexity. Their effect on governance remains insignificant if governance is measured via government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and the rule of law. This research highlights the importance of diversifying African economies by promoting human capital investments and governance reforms that reduce corruption, ensure transparency and accountability in government, and stabilize politics. Our results also show that infrastructural development and GDP per capita are the major drivers of economic complexity in Africa, whereas international tourism appears to have a significant negative effect. Therefore, we provide several policy suggestions to reflect these insights.

Motivated by the persistent fall in oil prices due to incessant uncertainty-inducing events in recent years, this study empirically examined if economic growth in Africa's top five oil exporters (Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya, and Nigeria) is ...

This study examined the nexus between Exchange Rate and Non-Oil Export in Nigeria using time series data from 1985 to 2018. Secondary data were sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and World Bank Development Indicators (WDI). The study adopted Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model and it was fitted with Seven variables; namely, Non-oil Export (NOE), Exchange Rate (EXR), Credit to Private Sector (CPS), Trade Openness (OPN), Inflation (INF), Interest Rate (INT) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The results showed that the exchange rate has a positive and significant impact on non-oil export in Nigeria. Therefore, the study recommended that the Government should encourage international trade to boost non-oil export and increase foreign exchange earnings. Also, there is a need for the government to improve the financial institutions to make investment funds available. Lastly, there is a need to revisit the export-oriented policy to ensure that the non-oil sector is well catered for.