Despite the abundant research on economic development, corruption and political instability, little research has attempted to examine whether there is a causal relationship among them. This paper examines the causal relationship among corruption, political instability and economic development in the ECOWAS using the Granger causality test within a multivariate cointegration and error-correction framework for the 1996-2012 period. The findings indicate that political instability Granger-causes economic development in the short term, while political instability and economic development Granger-cause corruption in the long term. In addition, we employed the forecast error variance decomposition and impulse response function analyses to investigate the dynamic interaction between the variables. The results demonstrate positive unidirectional Granger causality from political instability to economic development in the short term and positive unidirectional Granger causality from political instability and economic development to corruption in the long term in ECOWAS countries. Thus, ECOWAS governments should employ policies to promote political stability in the region.

Reducing corruption has been one major challenge facing government and policy makers in Nigeria. This study employs the ARDL, CCR and FMOLS methods to assess the determinants of corruption in Nigeria over the period 1984-2016. The result of the cointegration test indicates that corruption and its determinants (economic development, political rights, military expenditure, rents, civil liberties and openness) have a long-run relationship. The results of the ARDL, CCR and FMOLS estimation demonstrate that economic development, political rights, military expenditure, rents, civil liberties and openness, are the main determinants of corruption in the long-run. Higher-economic development, greater civil liberties, more openness and higher military expenditure are related to lower corruption, but higher rents and political rights are associated with higher corruption. Based on these outcomes, this study recommends policies to promote economic development, civil liberties, political rights and openness, including reducing the reliance on the oil sector to curb corruption in Nigeria.

This paper employs PCSE, OLS and TSLS with random effects to investigate the impact of the political instabilityincome interaction on savings in ECOWAS countries during the period 1996-2012. The empirical evidence illustrates that higher political stability is associated with higher savings and income levels moderate the adverse effect of political instability on savings, indicating that the impact of political instability on savings is higher in low income ECOWAS countries, but lesser at higher levels of income. The paper recommends the promotion of political stability via increases in incomes to raise savings in the ECOWAS region.

Background: Undernutrition in children under 5 years is a major risk factor to child deaths and is related to impaired cognitive development and lower school performance. Underprivileged children such as orphans are at particularly high risk of undernutrition. Little is however known about the nutritional status and dietary diversity of orphan children in Ghana. This study therefore compared the nutritional status and dietary diversity of orphan and non-orphan children. Methods: An analytical crosssectional study design was used. Two hundred and forty-six children (123 non-orphan and 123 orphans) were sampled from households (non -orphans) and four orphanages (orphans). Maternal / caregiver and child socio-demographic characteristics and dietary diversity of children was assessed with a semistructured questionnaire. We measured anthropometric characteristics of children. Stunting, wasting and underweight in children was classified using Heightforage Zscores (HAZ), Weightforheight Zscores (WHZ) and Weightforage Zscores (WAZ) respectively. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to compare the nutritional status and dietary diversity of orphan and non-orphan children. Results: Majority of the children were male (52.4%). The prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight was 17.9, 5.3 and 7.7% respectively for all children. There was no difference in the prevalence of stunting (17.1% vs 18.7%) (p = 0. 74), wasting (4.9% vs 5.7%) (p = 0.78) and underweight (7.3% vs 8.1%) (p = 0.81) among nonorphans and orphans. There was also no difference in mean HAZ (p = 0.52), WHZ (p = 0.27) and WAZ (p = 0.12) of non-orphan and orphan children. However, orphans had higher mean dietary diversity score (p < 0.001) and minimum dietary diversity (p < 0.001) than nonorphans. After controlling for potential confounders, nonorphans were 7.491 times more likely to have a low dietary diversity [AOR = 7.491; 95% CI (1.851-30.320); p = 0.005] compared to orphans. Conclusion: Present study data show no significant difference in the anthropometric status of orphan and nonorphan children. Orphans were more likely to receive a diversified diet than nonorphans.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This study employs the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing technique to examine whether Okun's law exists in Nigeria during 1970-2014. In addition, this study considers the role of oil prices in the Nigerian economy. The empirical results indicate that a cointegrating or long term relationship exists between the unemployment rate, economic growth and oil prices. In addition, the results demonstrate that in Nigeria, in the long term, unemployment has a negative and significant effect on economic growth, and oil prices have a significant and positive effect on economic growth. The coefficient of unemployment (0.18%) for this study is far less than the result reported by Okun and other studies that focused on developed countries. This suggests that the Okun coefficient is not only unstable but varies for different countries, and does not remain constant for Nigeria. However, policymakers should take steps to reduce unemployment to enhance economic growth in Nigeria. Introduction The relationship between unemployment and economic growth has been extensively studied since Okun's study in 1962 (cited in Farsio & Quade, 2003), which determined that when unemployment is reduced by 1 percentage point, GNP increases by approximately 3%. Scholars have evaluated the link between unemployment and economic growth by either regressing output on the unemployment rate or regressing unemployment on output growth. Certain studies have tested Okun's hypothesis and reported mixed results because they used different datasets, various estimation techniques, various time periods, and different countries with disparate features. Some studies have determined that output growth has a negative effect on unemploy