The study investigates the impact of institutional quality on the external debt–growth nexus in SSA. Data from 36 SSA economies over the 1996–2013 periods were used. The results from the IV-System GMM imply that institutional quality has robust effects on the external debt–growth nexus. Thus, the impact of external debt on growth is through host nation’s institutional quality. However, the mediating effect of institutional quality on this nexus is up to a point. When a country is on the wrong side of the debt-laffer curve, external debt becomes irrelevant; and institutional quality can no longer help.

Currently, over 1.5 billion people, especially in the Global South, live without access to modern energy for household uses, especially for cooking. Therefore, this study examines the cooking space of the Global South with a specific focus on the rural communities to map alternative energy sources, technologies and supporting policies to drive clean cooking services for improved socioeconomic development. It begins with a literature review on clean cooking technologies and clean energy access for the Global South, which leads to the suggestion of clean cooking policies by mapping technology, affordability, accessibility, climate action, business model and local capacity. In order to ensure that the validation is appropriate, three online questionnaires were designed to capture three categories of key stakeholders with distinctive and complementary interests in clean energy access for cooking: (i) End-users, (ii) Energy Suppliers and (iii) Interest Groups in rural communities in Fiji, Ghana and Nigeria. The responses are analysed to conduct a comparative study across the three countries examined. Based on the above, an attempt is made to present broad base policy pathways for adopting clean cooking services in the rural community for sustainable development. The policy pathways harmonize the major stakeholders in the cooking space: Governments, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), clean energy developers, business services and the end-users. In addition, a business model in the context of a rural community cooking space is proposed, stating that the initial life of the clean cooking business should be government-driven and, thereafter, followed by incentive-driven at the mid-life of the business (say, 25% technology penetration) and private-sector-driven at the late-life (say, 45% technology penetration). It is expected that the effort made in this work could be advanced by investigating the detailed techno-economic parameters of clean cooking technologies that could be influenced by the policy pathways established in connection with the sociocultural factors associated with energy services.

Purpose: This research investigates the threshold effects of the interplay between finance, development and carbon emissions across 97 countries, including 50 low-income and 47 high-income countries, during the period from 1991 to 2019.Design/methodology/approach: Employing various econometric modeling techniques such as dynamic linear regression, dynamic panel threshold regression and in/out of sample splitting, this study analyzes the data obtained from the World Bank's world development indicators.Findings: The results indicate that low-income countries require a minimum financial development threshold of 0.354 to effectively reduce carbon emissions. Conversely, high-income countries require a higher financial development threshold of 0.662 to mitigate finance-induced carbon emissions. These findings validate the presence of a finance-led Environmental Kuznet Curve (EKC). Furthermore, the study highlights those high-income countries exhibit greater environmental concern compared to their low-income counterparts. Additionally, a minimum GDP per capita of US$ 10,067 is necessary to facilitate economic development and subsequently reduce carbon emissions. Once GDP per capita surpasses this threshold, a rise in economic development by a certain percentage could lead to a 0.96% reduction in carbon emissions across all income levels.Originality/value: This study provides a novel contribution by estimating practical financial and economic thresholds essential for reducing carbon emissions within countries at varying levels of development.

Purpose: The cost of agricultural loans is a major constraint to the growth of the agriculture sector. This paper examines agricultural loan pricing by banks in Ghana using panel data analysis.Design/methodology/approach: Data were obtained from audited financial reports of 15 agricultural loan lending banks from 2010 to 2017. The study applies the random-effect model and the fixed-effect model in the analysis and uses the system generalized system method of moment to check the robustness of the results from the baseline models.Findings: The study found that agricultural loan pricing by banks is significantly influenced by risk premium, cost of funds, loan impairment, agricultural growth rate and food inflation. Banks should leverage emerging technologies to de-risk agriculture loan pricing to allay the fear of default. Farmers should look for long-term and relatively cheaper funds to support agricultural loans. Increasing credit to the agricultural sector could increase output, thereby reducing food inflation uncertainty for competitive pricing of agricultural loans.Originality/value: Agriculture employs about 52% of Ghana's labor force, contributing about 20% to GDP. But it is “under” financed. This study leads the way in unraveling the factors accounting for the high prices of agricultural loans in Ghana. This study further contributes to policy development toward increasing credit to the agricultural sector.