PurposeThis study aims to examine the effect of structural transformation on poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries with a higher share of services as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). The study specifically focuses on the value-added share as a percentage of GDP in the agricultural, manufacturing, industrial, and service sectors using time series data from 1988 to 2019.Design/methodology/approachThe study utilizes the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) bound test framework for estimation, based on the conclusions drawn from the augmented Dickey-Fuller and Phillips–Perron unit root tests, which provide evidence of a mixed order of integration.FindingsThe result reveals that agriculture value-added (AVA), manufacturing value-added (MVA), industrial value-added (IVA), and services value-added (SVA) have a positive and significant impact on poverty alleviation in both the short and long run. However, the agriculture sector is found to be more effective in reducing poverty compared to the other sectors examined in this study. Additionally, this study challenges the notion that SSA countries have undergone an immature structural transformation. Instead, it reveals a pattern of stagnant structural transformation, as indicated by the lack of growth in the industrial and manufacturing value-added shares of GDP.Practical implicationsTo enhance productivity and reduce poverty, SSA economies should adopt a development strategy that prioritizes heavy manufacturing and industrial sectors, leading to a transition from the agricultural to the secondary and tertiary sectors.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the emerging literature on structural transformation by investigating which sector is more efficient in reducing poverty in SSA countries, using the value-added share as a percentage of GDP for agricultural, manufacturing, industrial, and service sectors. The study also aims to determine if SSA countries have experienced immature structural transformation due to the growing share in the service sector.

External debt is indispensable, especially in developing countries which usually face budget deficits to cover up their saving-investment gap. However, the effect of external debt on inflation depends on whether it is increasing or decreasing. Hence, this study aims to examine the effect of external debt stocks on inflation using World Bank data from 1980 to 2020 in Cameroon. The study makes use of non-linear ARDL to examine the positive and negative changes in external debt stocks and their effects on inflation. The results indicate a long-run increasing and decreasing asymmetry effect of external debts on inflation. Only the coefficient of positive external debt stock on inflation is positive and significant in the long run while in the short run, positive and negative external debt stocks respectively have a negative and positive significant impact on inflation. The study recommends that the government should be mindful of increasing external debt as it will become inflationary in the long run.

Good governance is paramount for the government of each country to reduce poverty and achieve their growth objectives. However, due to corruption, political instability, and government ineffectivesness, the quality of governance indicators has fail in most countries expecially those in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). Thus, the objective of this study was to examine the effect of good governance on poverty reduction in the CEMAC sub-region using World Bank data from 1996 to 2021. Due to multicollinearity and parsimonious model, four governance indicators were examine in the study; voice and accountability (vacc), government effectiveness, corruption, and political stability while household consumption expenditure (HCE) was use as a measure of poverty allevation. The study face the problem of cross-sectional dependence and heteroscedasticity. Hence, it employs the fixed effect model with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors regression. The results indicate that vacc and government effectiveness have a positive and significant impact on poverty reduction while corruption and political stability have a negative effect. This indicates that good governance is vital in reducing poverty and boosting the livelihood of the population in CEMAC sub region. The study recommends that CEMAC member countries should step up the quality of their governance indicators such as eradication of corruption, effectiveness in governance, and  adopts results based financing.