The complex and multidimensional nature of the quality of life (QoL) concept has given rise to different empirical works attempting to determine factors that could enhance its level in developing and emerging economies. Thus, scholars and policymakers have continued to demonstrate a keen interest in the concept because of its critical role in social planning—the goal is to accelerate the level of QoL of the people by lowering the harmful effects of social inequalities prevailing in today’s society. QoL forms one of the twenty-first century’s significant and disturbing social subjects. Thus, this study examined QoL from the sustainability perspective using ecological demands, renewable energy, income, urbanisation, and external debt in 44 African countries between 1990 and 2020. The study applied a battery of first and second-generation estimation techniques, including the dynamic common correlated effect, generalised linear mixed effect model, panel corrected standard error, and panel dynamic ordinary least squares procedures for deriving robust study inferences. The study demonstrated that as ecological demands and external debt continues to grow, QoL is adversely affected. Also, while income and urbanisation significantly positively affected QoL, renewable energy’s impact was neutral. The study proposed applicable policy measures for QoL enhancement in developing and emerging economies. JEL Classification: I31, O55, Q01.

The sharp and continuous decline in crude oil prices since the mid-2014, along with the lackluster efforts at diversifying the sources of revenue and foreign exchange in the economy, incontrovertibly led to the recession that greeted Nigeria in the second quarter of 2016 as manifested by fiscal crisis. Hence this study examines the imperative of economic diversification in trade and industrial policies in Nigeria. In order to characterize the pattern of trade and industrial transformation in the diversification process, we adopted the augmented version of Kaldor’s first law which establishes a link between manufacturing output and economic growth. Based on annualized secondary time series, spanning from 1970 to 2015, obtained from the CBN statistical bulletin of various years, the study employed the contemporary econometric techniques of cointegration and error correction mechanism, within the framework of the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model as proposed by Pesaran et al (2001) in achieving its objective. The results show that manufacturing output, crude petroleum and natural gas production, as well as mining production have significant positive longrun impact on economic growth in Nigeria. This implies that economic diversification-based industrial policies will definitely bring about the desired economic outcomes in Nigeria. We therefore conclude that trade and industrial policies should be geared towards diversification of the economy.

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