The aim of this study is to examine the effects of illiteracy and unemployment on financial inclusion in rural areas of Nigeria between 2017 and 2022. Most rural areas in developing countries have high illiteracy and unemployment rates, creating challenges for researchers to measure the inclusiveness of financial services and products. This study examined the effect of illiteracy and unemployment on the inclusiveness of financial services and products in rural areas of Nigeria. The ex-post facto research design, systematic sampling, dummy for latent variables (erratic power supply and insecurity in rural areas), and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) techniques were employed. The result showed that the coefficient estimate for the illiteracy rate is negative (-0.5318), indicating that higher illiteracy is associated with lower financial inclusiveness, and the coefficient estimate for unemployment rate is also negative (-2.1977) and statistically significant, suggesting that the higher unemployment rate is associated with financial inclusiveness. These findings indicate that a decline in the delivery of financial services in developing nations attest to illiteracy and unemployment. This study concluded that there is a need to improve education and employment rates in rural areas of developing countries to achieve optimal inclusiveness of financial services and products.

Objective: This study examines the mediating effect of financial innovation on the relationship between green finance and environmental performance. Design/Methods/Approach: A targeted sampling technique was used for access bank selection. Copies of the structured questionnaire were sent to 250 branch managers of Access Bank in southwestern Nigeria. A total of 200 questionnaires were completed and returned to researchers. Data were analyzed using the STATA 15 version using structural equation modeling. Findings: The results show that green loans, green training, green investment, and green policy have a positive and significant impact on environmental performance. This means that green finance parameters are the driving force behind Nigeria's environmental initiatives and performance. Furthermore, the study showcases that financial innovation partially mediates green loans, green investments, green training, and environmental performance. The study also confirms that financial innovation does mediate green policy and environmental performance. Originality/Value: Prior studies have confirmed the correlation between green finance and environmental outcomes. However, despite various research endeavors highlighting the influence of green finance on overall ecological performance and introducing financial innovation as a mediator, this aspect remains unexplored in the context of the banking sector. Practical/Policy implication: Given that financial innovation partially mediates green loans, green investments, green training, and environmental performance, the results of this investigation are of importance to policymakers and financial institutions in the area of banks’ environmental performance. This study provides insights on financial innovation and green finance in financial institutions to foster green banking activities to promote environmental sustainability and performance.

Unemployment and weak economic productivity are significant global issues, particularly in West Africa. Recently, through diverse mechanisms, remittances and foreign direct investment (FDI) have been sources of foreign capital flow that have positively influenced many less developed economies, including ECOWAS (ECOWAS stands for Economic Community of West African States). Nevertheless, these financial flows have exhibited significant inconsistencies, primarily resulting from economic downturns in migrants’ destination countries, with remarkable implications for beneficiary economies. This study, therefore, examines the effect of remittances and FDI on employment in ECOWAS. Specifically, the study assesses the effects of the inflow of remittances and FDI on employment using panel dynamic ordinary least squares (PDOLS) and also investigates the shock effects of remittances and FDI by employing Panel Vector Error Correction (PVECM), which involves variance decomposition. The results show that foreign direct investment (FDI) positively and significantly affects employment. Other variables that show a significant relationship with employment are wage rate, education expenditure, and interest rate. The variance decomposition result revealed that external shocks on remittances and FDI have short- and long-term effects on employment. The above findings imply that foreign direct investment has a far-reaching positive impact on the economy-wide management of the West African sub-region and thus calls for relevant policy options.

Type of article: Research Article AbstractPoverty remains a pressing challenge in developing economies, an necessitating analysis of financial and macroeconomic drivers of poverty reduction. Financial inclusion, particularly through access to savings and credit, has gained prominence as a pathway for households to build resilience, smooth consumption, and invest in productive ventures. This study examines the short-run and long-run effects of savings and credit from deposit money banks (DMBs) and microfinance banks (MFBs) on poverty reduction in Nigeria, with poverty headcount as the dependent variable. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model was employed, using time-series data obtained from reputable national and international organizations. Findings show that DMB savings significantly reduce poverty in both the short run (coefficient = 0.0077, p = 0.0389) and long run (–0.0393, p = 0.0036), emphasizing their role in mobilizing resources that enhance household welfare. DMB credit also reduces poverty in the short run (0.0031, p = 0.0005) and demonstrates marginal long-run significance (0.0199, p = 0.0914), reflecting its contribution to productive opportunities. By contrast, MFB savings show only weak short-run significance (–0.0059, p = 0.0799) and no long-run effect (–0.0393, p = 0.2366), while MFB credit remains insignificant in both the short run (0.0025, p = 0.3973) and long run (0.0155, p = 0.5222). The study recommends that DMBs should extend short-term savings benefits into long-term poverty reduction and sustain credit facilities. MFBs should improve savings mobilization through government-backed incentives and restructure credit with lower rates, flexible repayment, and financial literacy to strengthen their poverty-reduction role. AcknowledgmentWe appreciate Landmark University for providing the platform and funding for this research work. We appreciate your involvement.

The financial-related crises that raged through countries of the world which prompted the breakdown of some blue chip organizations (for example Enron, WorldCom, and so on.) have placed earnings management of financial statements in the spotlight and a developing number of organizations around the world have willfully embrace and integrate the practice of environmental accounting disclosure into their plans of action in other to improving their corporate strategies, moral conduct, and their relationship with significant cultural interest. It was against this backdrop that this study examined the impact of environmental accounting disclosure on the earnings management of quoted industrial sector companies in Nigeria. The study sample fourteen (14) industrial goods companies from 2013 to 2020 and from the pooled OLS (ordinary least square) regression analyses, the findings suggested a positive relationship between environmental accounting disclosure and discretionary accruals. It was recommended that industrial goods firms should persist in giving great concern to environmental accounting disclosure practice as it ties the growth of the firm to economic growth. Keywords: Environmental Accounting Disclosure; Earnings Management; Discretionary Accruals.

The study was carried out to find out the relationship between economic crisis and personal financing among Nigerian workers. The research work made use of both primary and secondary data. Primary data were collected through questionnaires and secondary data sourced from the Central Bank Annual Reports and Bureau of Statistics. Multivariate analysis was applied to determine the relationship between Economic crisis (proxied by inflation, exchange rate, unemployment and cost of living) and personal financing (proxied by spending, tax, savings and investment). Results from the analysis showed a significant positive relationship between economic crisis and personal savings of Nigerian workers. The results showed further that both workers' personal spending and taxes have a positive relationship with the economic crisis in Nigeria, and their relationships are statistically significant at a 5% significance level. It means all the proxied economic crisis variables jointly affect Nigerian workers' personal savings, spending and personal taxes. However, economic crisis had no significant effect on the investment of Nigerian workers. Economic crisis does not influence how Nigerian workers invest their meagre income. Therefore, the economic drivers (governments) are advised to pay more attention to tackling the problems of the high exchange rate, inflation rate, and unemployment rate bedeviling the country to reduce the overall cost of living in Nigeria.