This paper critically analyses the predictability of exchange rates using oil prices. Extant literature that investigates the significance of oil prices in forecasting exchange rates remains largely inconclusive due to limitations arising from methodological issues.  As such, this study uses deep learning approaches such as Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), Convolution Neural Network (CNN), and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) to predict exchange rates. In addition, the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) of time series dataset was utilized to ascertain its effect on the quality of prediction. To examine the efficacy of using oil prices in forecasting exchange rates, bivariate models were also built. Of the three bivariate models developed, the EMD-CNN model has the best predictive performance. Results obtained show that oil price information has a strong influence on forecasting exchange rates.

This study investigated the macroeconomic effect of refugee inflow on West African Countries using a panel vector autoregressive approach over the period 1992 to 2018. Our results provide evidence that a positive refugee shock induces a positive effect on GDP per capita, government consumption and labour force. On the other hand, the effect of a shock to refugee exerts a negative effect on the fiscal balance of host Countries. The overall result from the variance decomposition indicates that refugees prefer to migrate to Countries with better economic activities as reflected by the GDP per capita and labour supply, even though the magnitude of contribution of refugees to economic activities is small and significant only in the short run. Hence, refugees do not constitute an economic burden to West African States, but however induce a negative effect on their fiscal balance via extra budgetary expenditure. This calls for a global response to refugee crisis with respect to its fiscal implication on host Countries. This may go a long way in averting another circle of crisis because refugees often exacerbate the worsening economic and social problems of host Countries, leading to increase in government consumption.