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This paper aims to test empirically, the direction of causality between climate change, agriculture valued added, Food production (the proxy for food availability), and economic growth in the Gambia. This study employed annual data which were collected for the period 1960-2017 and analyzed these data using the ARDL approach and the granger causality framework. The empirical evidence shows that: (1) the short-run and long-run ARDL model confirmed that the growth of fish production and growth of livestock production in the Gambia have significant positive impacts on the growth of GDP; (2) the short-run and long-run ARDL model indicated that growth of food import and growth of agriculture have negative impacts on the growth of GDP; (3) Granger causality analysis between the lagged values of growth of GDP and lagged values of growth of Food availability indicators has unidirectional relationships; (4) lagged values of the growth of GDP Granger cause lagged values of growth of agriculture but lagged values of growth of agriculture do not garger cause lagged values of growth of GDP, which suggested an indirect relationship; (5) the relationship between the lagged values of growth of crop production and lagged values of growth of agriculture indicated a bidirectional relationship. Finally, an important indication is established on the role of fish production, livestock production, climate change, and crop production to control food availability and economic growth in the Gambia.

This paper uses the Malmquist Productivity Index-type DEA technique to measure the efficiency levels in Australia's retirement income system over the period 2000-2005. It covers important segments of the industry focusing on the different fund types and analyses market dynamics under Australia's financial reforms of its pension system. The paper describes the competitive nature of the industry and provides an empirical analysis of the nature of the technical and scale efficiency and the factors driving these efficiencies and finds that overall, the reforms have had efficiency-enhancing effects. Contrary to popular theory, the paper also finds that a key driver of the changes in efficiency in the retirement income system in Australia include the government, which suggests that despite the number of financial reforms introduced since 1992, government interventions can still have positive influences on the country's pension system.

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The main objective of this paper is to examine the effects of interest rate on economic growth in Gambia over the period 1993 to 2017. The Vector E rror Correction Model (VECM) is used to check the relationships between the dependent variable (Gross Domestic Product) and independent variables (Real Effective Exchange Rate and Real Interest Rate), both in the short-run and long-run. Post estimation tests, including Lagrange Multiplier test for residual autocorrelation were also conducted for autocorrelation, as well as Jarque Bera to test for stability and to check whether residuals are normally distributed. The empirical evidence indicates that there is no short-run association between the growth of the Gambian economy and interest rate but that there is a long run connection that runs from real interest rate and real exchange rate to GDP. Based on these findings, the paper recommends for the government through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs to prudently manage the Gambia's budget by avoiding unnecessary expenditures that could lead to budget deficits.These budget deficits are key drivers that cause interest rates to rise, which in turn are inimical to economic growth.