Remittances is now the largest international flow to Africa. In Sub-Sahara Africa,it grew by 10 percent to $46 billion in 2018, accounting forabout 3 percent of the GDP of the subcontinent.This studyanalyzes the long run relationship of remittances and economic growth in some selected SSA countries,namely, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Senegal, using annual panel data for the period of 1980-2018. The studyemployed LLC and IPS panel unit root test, Pedroni and Kao co-integration test to investigate structural and causal relationship between variables. From the long run cointegrating parameter estimates,the results suggest that an increase in remittances, foreign direct investment, trade openness and domestic investment, increases economic growth of SSA countries. Therefore, the study recommends that there is the need for SSA to design policies, programs as well as the institutional reform that will encourage the productiveuse of remittances.

This paper examines whether financial services (McKinnon conduit) or provision of credit is more effective in reducing poverty in Nigeria using data for the period 1980-2018. It employs Autoregressive and Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) Approach to estimate the parameters and cointegration analyses for income and consumption models. The results of the ARDL Bound Test to Cointegration indicate a long-run relationship among the variables in the two models. The study reveals that availability and improvement in financial services is more beneficial than credit growth. In addition, the study suggests that financial instability may hurt the poor and retards the beneficial effect of financial development particularly in the short run. The paper recommends intensification of effort towards second-generation reforms, such as, design and implementation of financial inclusion policies that involve improving access to financial services that foster inclusive-growth. Furthermore, the study recommends guided deregulation in credit market as a way of precluding or subduing its susceptibility in triggering full-blown crises that is detrimental to the poor's aggregate welfare.

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