The study assessed the effect of inflation targeting (IT) policy on inflation uncertainty and economic growth in African and European IT countries. This study contributes to the existing knowledge by analysing and comparing the African IT and European IT countries using two advanced approaches which include the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) and Panel Vector Autoregressive (PVAR). To determine how the IT policy affects the inflation uncertainty in selected countries, time series techniques were employed. Panel data approaches were used to determine the effect of inflation targeting on economic growth in the selected countries. The results are as follows: (1) Inflation Targeting policy is insignificant in reducing inflation uncertainty in South Africa, and the effect of the policy in Ghana is inconclusive; (2) The IT policy has a significant impact in reducing inflation uncertainty in European countries (i.e., Poland and the Czech Republic); (3) Inflation targeting has a negative impact on economic growth in African Countries; (4) The policy has a positive impact on economic growth in European Countries; (5) In comparison to European countries, the strategy has a negligible impact on economic growth in Africa. Overall, the results suggest that European countries inflation targeting regimes are more credible in terms of reducing the level of inflation uncertainty and sustaining economic growth compared to African countries. In this respect, policymakers must ensure that they assess the economic condition of an individual country before implementing such a policy.

The study provides a comparative analysis of the impact of pandemics and the level of economic uncertainty in the labour markets of low- and middle-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Although the impact of pandemics has received considerable attention to date, the analysis of pandemic asymmetric effects in the labour market and the role of economic uncertainty as a mediator of these effects has not yet been fully explored. Asymmetric panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag and Fixed/Random Effect models, as well as secondary data for the fourteen SSA countries, are employed in the analysis, which covers the sample period from 1996 to 2022. The findings demonstrate that a high frequency of pandemics significantly affects the labour market of low-income SSA countries over both the short and long run. However, the effects of pandemics are only short-term significant for middle-income SSA countries. Furthermore, high pandemic frequency itself triggers unemployment more in low-income countries, while the effect in middle-income countries depends on the economic uncertainty levels. The findings imply that low-income countries suffer more from pandemics than middle-income countries, given the severity of the effects. This could be mitigated through stronger social protection and labour market policies. Also, policymakers in low-income countries should give top priority to establishing their own economic strategies and be vigilant in assessing their current economic conditions.

1. The relationship between political regimes and income inequality has been a subject of significant scholarly debate and policy discourse. In the South African context, a country marked by its hi...