This article investigates the conflict–poverty relationship in Africa between 1980 and 2015. Conducting a panel regression, we test the effect of disaggregated conflict on the poverty index (POV) and indicators in Africa. Conflict causes poverty in Africa, and not the other way round as many studies have suggested. We also found that internal conflict causes poverty in Africa; it increases the poverty rate and worsens the standard of living. However, interstate conflicts have little effects on poverty indicators, it reduces the life expectancy of people in Africa. This article concludes that poverty is not the prime cause of conflict in Africa; there are other causes (i.e., political, structural, and sociological), poverty only stimulates conflict. This article suggests that peacemaking and peacebuilding mechanisms should be strengthened in Africa. Also, emphasis should be laid on other causes of conflict, such as political, structural and sociological, as it has been established that poverty is not the cause of conflict in Africa.

This article investigates the short- and long-run effects of political regimes (POLREGs) on economic development in Nigeria between 1984 and 2015. It looks at the effects of the conflict (CONFL) and corruption (COR) on economic development indicators and examines the interactive effect of POLREGs and COR as well as CONFL on economic development. COR and CONFL seem to be more prevalent in Nigeria during democracy relative to the periods under dictatorship. Using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration, it derived a number of robust conclusions. Democracy in the long run yields higher economic development when it is devoid of CONFL and COR, while autocracy hinders economic development. In the short run however, more autocracy fosters economic development in Nigeria while democracy hinders it. COR portends grave threat to the development of Nigeria’s economy as it reduces development in the long run. Effect of CONFL on economic development in Nigeria is unclear. These findings highlight the need to establish effective anti-graft agencies to fight COR to the barest minimum in Nigeria. They also highlight the need to employ CONFL resolution mechanisms in resolving CONFL issues in the democratization process of the country. JEL: D74, K420, P160, O1, Q550

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This research investigates the interactive effect of trade openness and the institutional quality on economic growth in sub-Sahara Africa. The sample consists of 38 sub-Saharan African countries and covers the period 1986-2015. Pooled OLS, fixed effect, and Dynamic GMM were used as estimation techniques. The empirical section used a nonlinear growth regression specification that interacts trade openness with law and order, bureaucratic quality, corruption, government stability, and democratic accountability. The study found that corruption, government stability, law and order, and bureaucratic quality as institutional quality variables harm economic growth. The interaction of trade openness and institutional quality variables positively impacted economic growth. It is an indication that trade openness better impacted economic growth in the presence of high-quality institutional variables.