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Using a measurement model of brand name and consumer preferences, this study aims to investigate the effects of brand name on consumer preferences in

The 21 st century economic growth is characterized by extensive production and consumption, which increases anthropogenic emissions. However, reducing emission levels require ecological sustainability through innovation and modern technological consideration. This paper investigated not only renewable energy-driven environmental quality but also captured innovation research investment in renewables within the framework of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) model for G-7 countries. The findings confirmed the presence of EKC hypothesis for G-7 countries. In addition, renewable energy and innovation were identified to exert negative effects on ecological footprint. To capture the entire conditional distribution of the ecological footprint, we applied the Method of Moments Quantile Regression with fixed-effects. The results affirmed the negative effects of renewable energy innovation. Besides, their effects were heterogeneous across the quantiles with evidence of diminishing effects from lower to higher quantiles, suggesting that countries with lower levels of ecological footprint are possibly more prone to the environmental deterioration effect of income growth. The results of the causality test support economic growth-induced ecological degradation, growth-induced renewables, and innovation-induced ecological conservation. The results further showed a feedback effect between renewables and ecological footprint, innovation, and income growth as well as innovation and renewables. These findings portend important implications for the realization of carbon-free economies in G-7 countries by 2100.

The world has progressively become a global village and most economic activities in today's world embrace digitisation. Digitisation is gradually being appreciated in West Africa but its impact on youth unemployment is relatively unknown. Thus, this study aims at filling this research gap by measuring digitisation in two perspectives; internet penetration rate and mobile telephone subscription. The Im-Pesaran-Shin (IPS) unit-root test affirms that the data are suitable for panel ARDL estimation technique. The estimation establishes that youth unemployment, digitisation and the control variables are cointegrated. This study also reveals that digitisation could reduce youth unemployment in West Africa, both at the short-and long-run but not convincing due to low appreciation of digital technologies. In the short-run, the result is consistent in some countries but not same and robust in some others. Thus, the paper concludes that increasing digitisation would enhance employment opportunities for the youths in the West African region.

The study aims to find the short-run empirical analyses of the impact of oil price fluctuation on the monetary instrument (Exchange rate, Inflation, Interest rate) in Nigeria. We explored the frequently used Toda–Yamamoto model (TY) model, by adopting the TY Modified Wald (MWALD) test approach to causality, Forecast Error Variance Decomposition (FEVD) and Impulse Response Functions (IRFs).The study covered the period 1995 to 2018 (monthly basis), and our findings from MWALD test indicated that there is a uni-directional causality of the log of oil price (lnoilpr) to log of the exchange rate (lnexchr) at 10% level of significance, also there is a contemporaneous response of log of consumer price index (lncpi) to log of exchange rate (lnexchr) and log of interest rate (lnintr), and jointly (lnoilpr, lncpi and lnintr) granger cause lncpi. Also at 5% level of significance lnintr responded due to positive change in lnoilpr and lnexchr, and jointly causes lnintr at 5% level of significance. This is complimented with our findings in FEVDs, and IRFs. The empirical analyses shows that oil price is a strong determining factor of exchange rate, cost of borrowing and directly influences inflationary or deflationary tendencies in Nigeria..