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The purpose of this paper is to assess the importance of credit access in modulating governance for gender-inclusive education in 42 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with data spanning the period 2004–2014.

The generalized method of moments is used as empirical strategy.

The following findings are established: First, credit access modulates government effectiveness and the rule of law to induce positive net effects on inclusive “primary and secondary education.” Second, credit access also moderates political stability and the rule of law for overall net positive effects on inclusive secondary education. Third, credit access complements government effectiveness to engender an overall positive impact on inclusive tertiary education.

Policy implications are discussed with emphasis on sustainable development goals.

This study aims to examine how the starting of business by females can be promoted by assessing critical levels of microfinance institutions (MFIs) penetration that policymakers must endeavor to maintain and/or attain in order for female unemployment not to represent a constraint in the doing of business. A constraint in doing business is understood in terms of the procedure that a woman has to go through to start a business.

The focus of the study is on 44 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2004–2018, while the empirical evidence is based on interactive quantile regressions.

The following findings are established. The validity of tested hypotheses is exclusively apparent in the lowest and highest quantiles of the conditional distribution of the procedure women have to go through to start a business. MFI penetration levels needed to reverse the unfavorable incidence of female unemployment in doing business are provided. These are minimum MFIs penetration thresholds that are required in order for female unemployment not to negatively affect the procedure that a woman should go through to start a business.

The study complements the extant literature by assessing critical microfinance penetration levels that are needed to promote female doing of business, contingent on existing levels of female doing of business.

This study aims to investigate the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in modulating the effect of governance on insurance penetration in 42 Sub-Saharan African countries using data for the period 2004-2014.

Two insurance indicators are used in the analysis, namely, life insurance and non-life insurance. The three ICT modulating dynamics used include mobile phone penetration, internet penetration and fixed broadband subscriptions. Six governance channels are also considered, namely, political stability, “voice & accountability”, regulation quality, government effectiveness, the rule of law and corruption-control. The empirical evidence is based on generalized method of moments.

The following main findings are established. First, mobile phone penetration does not significantly modulate governance channels to positively affect life insurance while it effectively complements “voice & accountability” to induce a positive net effect on non-life insurance. Second, internet penetration complements governance dynamics of political stability, government effectiveness and rule of law to induce positive net effects on life insurance and corruption-control for an overall positive effect on non-life insurance. Third, the relevance of fixed broadband subscriptions in promoting life insurance is apparent via governance channels of regulation quality, government effectiveness and the rule of law while fixed broadband subscriptions do not induce significant overall net effects on non-life insurance though the conditional effects are overwhelmingly significant.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, studies on the relevance of ICT in promoting insurance consumption through governance channels are sparse, especially for a region such as Sub-Saharan Africa where insurance penetration is low compared to other regions of the world.

This study aims to provide the thresholds of inequality that should not be exceeded if gender inclusive education is to enhance gender inclusive formal economic participation in sub-Saharan Africa.

The empirical evidence is based on the generalised method of moments and data from 42 countries during the period 2004-2014.

The following findings are established. First, inclusive tertiary education unconditionally promotes gender economic inclusion, while the interaction between tertiary education and inequality is unfavourable to gender economic inclusion. Second, a Gini coefficient that nullifies the positive incidence of inclusive tertiary education on female labour force participation is 0.562. Second, the Gini coefficient and Palma ratio that crowd-out the negative unconditional effects of inclusive tertiary education on female unemployment are 0.547 and 6.118, respectively. Third, a 0.578 Gini coefficient, a 0.680 Atkinson index and a 6.557 Palma ratio are critical masses that wipe out the positive unconditional effects of inclusive tertiary education on female employment. The findings associated with lower levels of education are not significant.

As the main policy implication, income inequality should not be tolerated above the established thresholds for gender inclusive education to promote gender inclusive formal economic participation. Other implications are discussed in the light of sustainable development goals.

This study complements the existing literature by providing inequality thresholds that should not be exceeded for gender inclusive education to promote the involvement of women in the formal economic sector.

The purpose of this paper is to assess how incarcerations persist across the world. The focus is on 163 countries for the period 2010-2015.

The empirical evidence is based on generalized method of moments. In order to increase room for policy implications, the data set is decomposed into sub-samples based on income levels, religious domination, openness to the sea, regional proximity and legal origins.

The following main findings are established. Incarcerations are more persistent in low income, Christian-protestant and Latin American countries while comparative evidence is not feasible on the basis of landlockedness and legal origins owing to unfavorable post-estimation diagnostic tests. Justifications for the comparative advantages and relevance of findings to theory building in public economics are discussed.

First, income levels matter in the persistence of incarcerations because low-income nations vis-à-vis their high-income counterparts have less financial resources with which to prevent and deal with events like terrorism, political instability and violence that lead to incarcerations. Second, the intuition for religious domination builds on the fact that liberal societies can be more associated with incarcerations compared to conservative societies. The main theoretical contribution of this study to the literature is that the authors have built on empirical validity to provide theoretical justification as to why categorizing countries on the basis of selected fundamental characteristics determine cross-country variations in incarcerations. Such evidence is important for theory building in public economics.

It is important for policy makers to understand the persistence of incarcerations across nations because resources could be allocated to regions and countries, contingent on the relative importance of future incarceration tendencies.

The study has investigated the comparative importance of financial access in promoting gender inclusion in African countries.

Gender inclusion is proxied by the female labour participation rate while financial channels include: financial system deposits and private domestic credit. The empirical evidence is based on non-contemporary fixed effects regressions.

In order to provide more implications on comparative relevance, the dataset is categorised into income levels (middle income versus (vs.) low income); legal origins (French civil law vs. English common law); religious domination (Islam vs. Christianity); openness to sea (coastal vs. landlocked); resource-wealth (oil-poor vs. oil-rich) and political stability (stable vs. unstable). Six main hypotheses are tested, notably, that middle income, English common law, Christianity, coastal, oil-rich and stable countries enjoy better levels of “financial access”-induced gender inclusion compared to respectively, low income, French civil law, Islam, landlocked, oil-poor and unstable countries. All six tested hypotheses are validated.

This is the first study on the comparative importance of financial access in gender economic participation.

Financial dollarisation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is most persistent compared to other regions of the world. The purpose of this paper is to complement the existing scant literature on dollarisation in Africa by assessing the role of information sharing offices (public credit registries and private credit bureaus) on financial dollarisation in 25 SSA countries for the period 2001-2012.

The empirical evidence is based on ordinary least squares and generalised method of moments (GMM).

The findings show that information sharing offices (which are designed to reduce information asymmetry) in the banking industry are a deterrent to dollarisation. The underpinning assumption that financial development reduces financial dollarisation is confirmed.

There is scant literature on the relevance of information sharing offices in development outcomes in Africa. While the establishment of these offices in most countries in the continent began in 2004, scholarship on the importance of these offices in financial development is sparse.

This study investigates how enhancing information and communication technology (ICT) affects female economic participation in sub-Saharan African nations.

Three female economic participation indicators are used, namely female labour force participation, female unemployment and female employment rates. The engaged ICT variables are fixed broadband subscriptions, mobile phone penetration and Internet penetration. The Generalized Method of Moments is used for the empirical analysis.

The following main findings are established: First, there is a (1) negative net effect in the relevance of fixed broadband subscriptions in female labour force participation and female unemployment and (2) positive net effects from the importance of fixed broadband subscriptions on the female employment rate. Secondly, an extended analysis is used to establish thresholds at which the undesirable net negative effect on female labour force participation can be avoided. From the corresponding findings, a fixed broadband subscription rate of 9.187 per 100 people is necessary to completely dampen the established net negative effect. Hence, the established threshold is the critical mass necessary for the enhancement of fixed broadband subscriptions to induce an overall positive net effect on the female labour force participation rate.

This study complements the extant literature by assessing how increasing penetration levels of ICT affect female economic inclusion and by extension, thresholds necessary for the promotion of ICT to increase female economic inclusion.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of inclusive human development and military expenditure in modulating the effect of terrorism on governance.

It is based on 53 African countries for the period 1998–2012 and interactive generalised method of moments is employed. Six governance indicators from the World Bank and two terrorism variables are used, namely, domestic and transnational terrorism dynamics.

The following main findings are established. There is a negative net effect on governance (regulation quality and corruption-control) when inclusive human development is used to reduce terrorism. There is a positive net impact on governance (voice and accountability and rule of law) when military expenditure is used to reduce domestic terrorism.

The authors have complemented the sparse literature on the use of policy variables to mitigate the effect of policy syndromes on macroeconomic outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to assess how inclusive education affects inclusive economic participation through the financial access channel.

The focus is on 42 sub-Saharan African countries with data for the period 2004-2014. The empirical evidence is based on the generalised method of moments.

The following findings are established. First, inclusive secondary education moderates financial access to exert a positive net effect on female labour force participation. Second, inclusive “primary and secondary school education” and inclusive tertiary education modulate financial access for a negative net effect on female unemployment. Third, inclusive secondary education and inclusive tertiary education both moderate financial access for an overall positive net effect on female employment. To provide more gender macroeconomic management policy options, inclusive education thresholds for complementary policies are provided and discussed.

Policy implications are discussed in the light of challenges of economic development in the sub-region and sustainable development goals.