Does agricultural development affect environmental quality? The case of carbon dioxide emission in Ghana

PurposeAgricultural development still constitutes an integral part of Ghana's drive towards job creation, industrial development and economic growth with various growth policies placing the agricultural sector at the core. While there are likely environmental effects of agricultural activities, evidence in Ghana remains scanty. The study focused on examining, empirically, the effects of the development of the agricultural sector on carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in Ghana.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employed the Stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence and technology (STIRPAT) framework to test for the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for agriculture and carbon dioxide emission as well as the effect that the changing structure of Ghana's agricultural development has on carbon dioxide emission for the 1971–2018 period. Regression analysis, variance decomposition and causality analysis were performed.FindingsThe regression results revealed a U-shaped relationship between agricultural development and carbon emission, implying a rejection of the EKC hypothesis between the two variables. In addition, the Structural Adjustment Programme was found to positively moderate the effect agriculture has on carbon emission.Practical implicationsThe study recommends the need for policy-makers to facilitate the large-scale adoption and use of modern technology and environmentally friendly agricultural methods.Originality/valueThe study is among the few works to assess the EKC hypothesis between agriculture and carbon dioxide emission in Africa. The direct and indirect effect of structural adjustment programme on carbon emission is estimated.

A Well-Adjusted Debt: How the International Anti-Debt Movement Failed to Delink Debt Relief and Structural Adjustment

This article analyses the process by which the issues of debt and structural adjustment were redefined by a plurality of actors, from institutional experts to activists, during the 1980s and 1990s. Although it mainly focuses on the 1990s, when the Jubilee 2000 campaign emerged, blossomed, and died, it takes into account the institutional mobilization preceding it. It then points to the need to think about the dynamics of competition and the division of labour among international players. While the leading Jubilee 2000 coalition in the Global North opposed debt on economic and religious grounds, African anti-structural adjustment programme (SAP) activists who joined the Jubilee Afrika campaign promoted an alternative framework: according to them, debt was not just economically “unsustainable”; it was first and foremost “illegitimate”, as were any conditions attached to its reduction, beginning with the implementation of SAPs. The story of the anti-debt campaign is the story of their failure.

South African budget plans may prove too ambitious

Significance However, the MTBPS relies even more heavily on getting powerful public-sector unions to agree to unprecedented wage freezes over the next three years, putting its credibility in doubt at a time when Pretoria urgently needs to win back the confidence of investors. Impacts The risk is rising that the country could be forced to go to the IMF for a full structural adjustment programme within a couple of years. Funds for South African Airways (SAA)'s rescue will not cover the cost of creating a new carrier, which depends on strategic investment. The spending cuts could weigh further on poor-quality delivery of public services and may also dampen an economic recovery.

Capital structure decisions in a period of economic intervention

Purpose This paper aims to analyse the Portuguese companies’ determinants of capital structure. To reach this objective, the authors used data from 37 non-financial Portuguese large enterprises and from 4,233 non-financial small and medium enterprises for the period 2010-2016. Additionally, the authors selected a sub-period from 2010 to 2014 for a deeper understanding of the impact of the sovereign debt crisis and the Economic Adjustment Programme of Troika on the capital structure of those companies. Design/methodology/approach Three dependent variables were tested according to debt maturity, and a dynamic panel data model, namely, the generalised method of moments system estimator, was used to test the formulated research hypotheses following Arellano and Bover (1995) and Blundell and Bond (1998) to capture the dynamic nature of the firm’s capital structure decisions. Findings In general, the results point out that the capital structure decisions depend on a set of firm-specific factors, and that the effects of the determinants of the debt maturity ratios differ according to the type of firm, i.e. large/small firms, and the economic cycle. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that has been carried out in Portugal by using two samples of large and small companies for analysing the effects of the Economic Adjustment Programme of Troika on the capital structure of companies. The authors seek to understand which type of companies suffered more because of the effects of the Economic Adjustment Programme of Troika during this period, and which are the capital structure determinants that present greater change. Contrary to what might be expected, large companies are the firms that suffer most from the Economic Adjustment Programme. Probably, because these companies are the most immediate, most scrutinised and those that must show abroad that the bank did not fund them in the long term, because of the imposition and limits to grant credit faced by the banks themselves.

Post-COVID world: The controls of moulding states

Crises force us to stop and think. And COVID-19 should. This paper examines the prospect of deep reform of national planning in the young post-colonial states (the moulding states). The paper is a contrasted case study of Kenya and Uganda. The attempt at generalisation across moulding states draws on a shared history of state formation. Two trunks define that history – post-independence conflicts and structural adjustment programme (SAP). A contrast between the two countries teases out a tension, which tension the paper uses to illuminate the two policy spaces. The analytical frame draws on control theory. The paper argues that neither country is likely to see structural reform of their national planning. Yet, the epistemological thrust of the paper is not that deduction but questions arising along with the scrutiny of the policy spaces. Those questions should provoke Africa and more broadly, the emerging economies

Effect of Structural Adjustment Programme on the Performance of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Nigeria

The examined the effect of structural adjustment programme on the performance of small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria. The research design adopted for the study is ex-post facto and the population of this is all the small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria. The population of the study is 72838 and was used as the sample size. Structural adjustment programme was measured by import substitution policy and export promotion policy and small and medium scale enterprise performance was measured by SMEs output. The study covered a period of 32 years from 1986-2017. The statistical tools adopted in this study were descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, unit root test and Regression. The analysis was conducted using e-view statistical software and the finding indicates that there was a negative and significant effect relationship between structural adjustment programme and performance of Small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria. The study also found that LIM has a positive and significant effect on LSMEOPT in Nigeria. Also, LEX has a negative and significant effect on LSMEOPT in Nigeria. The study suggested that Government in Nigeria should reduced the adoption of SAP in Nigeria but should only embark on import substitution since before the adoption of SAP, Nigerian introduced indigenization policy in 1977. Government of Nigeria should designed policy that discourage the people of Nigeria to purchase SMEs manufactured products from the richer countries. They should only sell their primary products on the world market, but their foreign exchange reserves should not be used to purchase the manufactures products from abroad.