Purpose Interaction between environmental pollution and economic growth determines the achievement of the green growth objective of developing economies. An economy turns around the inverted U-shaped environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) when pollution is effectively dampened by social, political and economic factors as such economy grows. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the EKC considering the impact of institutional quality on six variables of environmental pollution (carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), suspended particulate matters (SPM), rainfall, temperature and total greenhouse emission (TGH)) using the case of Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach The EKC model includes population density, education expenditure, foreign direct investment and gross domestic investment as control variables, and it was analysed using the autoregressive distribution lag (ARDL) econometric technique, which has not been applied in the literature on Nigeria. Findings The results, inter alia, indicate that there is EKC for CO2 and SPM. This implies that the green growth objective can be pursued in Nigeria with concerted efforts. Other environmental pollution indicators did not exert significant influence on economic growth. Practical implications Therefore, it is recommended that Nigeria’s institutional quality be strengthened to limit environmental pollution in light of economic growth. Originality/value Previous studies are yet to apply a more developed econometric method, like the ARDL, to estimate the EKC model for Nigeria. This study fills this observed knowledge gap.

Several policies and programmes have been put in place to address the issue of poverty both in developing and developed countries of which Nigeria is not exempted. This study using data from World Development Indicators (WDI) for the period of 1992-2016 examined the key principles influencing poverty rate in Nigeria and their implications for policy interventions. The result of the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model using several equations showed that unemployment increases poverty by approximately 1.4, 1.5 and 3.3 percent in the short run while inflation reduces poverty by approximately 0.08 percent in the short run. This implies that unemployment causes poverty while inflation, public resources devoted to austerity programmes and economic growth reduces poverty in the short run.The study recommends that government should put in place adequate measures and conducive environment to encourage more business operations in the country.

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Abstract:With so many countries of the world now open to global capital and trade, this study identifi es whether fi nancial and trade openness contribute to the development of Nigeria's fi nancial system by considering both fi nancial depth and access to fi nance indicators. To achieve this objective, we applied the Simultaneous Openness Hypothesis as our theoretical framework and the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) as our estimation method. Our fi ndings reveal that opening trade while neglecting capital (vice versa) may be detrimental to the development of Nigeria fi nancial system. In view of this evidence, we recommend that the simultaneous opening of trade and fi nance is a more guaranteed way of ensuring improved fi nancial development in Nigeria.

Social protection is increasingly becoming a powerful tool for enhancing productivity and employment and is, therefore, important for Africa’s agricultural transformation. Thus, this study aims at examining how Africa’s agricultural sector can be transformed through social protection policies and programmes for employment. It applies the Feasible Generalised Least Squares (FGLS) econometric method on a panel of 38 African countries with the data sourced from the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) and World Development Indicators (WDI) for the period 2005–2017. The results from the study show that social protection has a positive impact on employment outcomes through various channels such as building human resource, equity in the use of public resources, social inclusion, among others. The study concludes by recommending that the governments of African countries should implement effective social protection programmes and policies in the agricultural sector in form of insurance, in-kind and cash support, among others to make farming attractive, thereby increasing employment and productivity.