Despite the abundant deposit of gas resources in Nigeria, a large proportion of the country’s population still depend on traditional fuels such as firewood for cooking. This study investigates the determinants of households’ fuel choice in urban Nigeria. This study made use of primary data which were collected through administration of questionnaires in twelve states spread across six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The cooking fuels examined are firewood, kerosene, LPG, and electricity. Multinomial logit model was used to estimate the determinants of fuel choices. The results showed that income, age of the wife, education level of the wife, and household size were important factors that determine cooking fuel choices across the country. The paper concludes that efforts should be aimed at making clean cooking fuels especially LPG affordable and available for urban households.

Firm performance is determined in varying categorization of internal factors like managerial structure efficiency, corporate governance set up and ownership structure, which are made up of the firm broad structure, as this affects the ability of firms and control of external factors. In this study, the impact of board composition on firm performance in the manufacturing sector is examined. Primary data constructed from research instruments are based on questionnaires administered to 50 manufacturing firms in Nigeria and is aimed at identifying their corporate governance structure and to relate it to the overall performance of the firms. The qualitative response modeling techniques are also adopted for the empirical analysis. The results from the analysis shows that disclosure policy and measures aimed at guaranteeing board independence are very strong performance enhancing factors. On the other hand, conflict of interest among board members is found to exert significant negative impact on firms performance in the study. It is therefore recommended that corporate boards in manufacturing firms in Nigeria would be more effective with fewer but more committed members. Large-size boards may embellish conflict of interest among members and also decrease the sense of personal responsibility, with each board member taking refuge in the collective position.

In this study, the reverse impact of firm corporate performance on board structure is empirically examined using a large cross section of 50 manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The study makes a divergence from previous studies by noting that such a reverse effect is possible and examining this effect of performance on board structure in Nigeria. The panel data estimation technique is employed on the pooled data for the firms over a ten-year period (2004-2013) and estimation is performed using four measures of firm performance and two measures of board structure. The results show that there is actually reverse impact of firm performance on board structure although the effect is quite weak. The only performance variable that exerts significant impact on board structure (board size and independence) is earnings per share and, to a lesser degree profit margin. Moreover, firm size is shown to be an essential factor in explaining the general behavior of firm performance and also the pattern of effect of such performance on the board structure. The analyses clearly showed that firm size is itself a strong positive factor in improving firm performance and also tends to improve the effect of high performance on board structure across the firms.

Causal Relationship between Foreign Direct Investment andInternational Trade in Nigeria 1. Introduction International trade has been regarded by several economists, beginning from Adam Smith (1772) as an engine for growth and development. Ever since the time he wrote his book titled 'an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations', international trade has received world class attention. This was based on the belief that economies need to export goods and services in order to generate revenue to finance imported goods and services which cannot be produced indigenously. All countries in the world engage in trade with at least one country or the other, and this was made possible as a result of globalization via the impact of technology. Foreign Direct Investment on the other hand has been seen as another important agent of economic development, especially in the developing countries of the world, because it enhances the supply of funds for domestic investments, increases the rate of technology transfer, promotes export capacity of the host country through improved productivity, integrate the country into the world economy and also gives access to the world market.The importance of foreign trade and foreign direct investment to nations' economy is reflected in the statistics of the world's trade and FDI. FDI in the world has grown faster than world trade and world output. FDI outflow increases at global level at an average of 13% per year between 1980 and 2015, but declined by 13% in 2016 while both world trade and world output increase at an average rate of 7% per year between 1980 and 2015 at current prices. Furthermore, the world FDI inflows increased significantly from 207 billions' US dollar in 1990 to 1975 billion US dollars in 2007 and 1.5 Trillion US dollars and 1.3 Trillion US dollars in 2015 and 2016 respectively (UNCTAD, 2016). Therefore, Nations that want the development of her economy will certainly focus meticulously on her trade and FDI policies.Nigeria Government also recognized the importance of FDI and Foreign Trade as an engine and catalyst of growth and development. This was as a result of the fact that capital has a major role in fostering real and sustainable development. In an attempt to tap into the benefits accruing from both Foreign Direct Investment and International Trade by the Nigeria government, several strategies have been employed in order to promote FDI inflow and at the same time boost International Trade. Such strategies include regulatory measures and incentive policies, enactment of investment laws, removal of laws that are inimical to foreign direct investment and foreign trade, transfer of state owned enterprises to public own enterprises etc (Shiro, 2009).

The study examined determinants of alternative sources of cooking energy among households in Ekiti State of Nigeria. The study utilized descriptive research design. The study employed primary data through the use of structured questionnaires. Multiple regression was adopted for data analysis. The alternative sources of cooking energy examined were wood fuel, charcoal, kerosene, electricity, solar and liquefied petroleum gas. The findings revealed that price, economic status, household size, and preference have significant effect on sources of cooking energy. However, social background revealed a negative and insignificant effect on sources of cooking energy. The study concluded that the most used alternative source for cooking is liquefied petroleum gas in Ekiti State, Nigeria. It further displayed that the most used alternative source of cooking in rural areas is Kerosene and in the urban areas, the most used alternative sources of cooking is liquefied petroleum gas. It is suggested that the government should ensure prompt availability of alternative sources of cooking energy such as liquefied petroleum gas, kerosene, and electricity for the populace of Ekiti State and Government should discourage deforestation in Ekiti State so as to make woods available as source for cooking energy in the state