The study explores Africa's regional integration models with a view to determining their suitability or otherwise for rapid economic growth. Using annual data spanning 1980-2012, the study employs the Johansen (1998) and the Johansen and Juselius (1990) method of cointegration and Vector Error Correction Mechanism (VECM) to test for the presence of longrun equilibrium relationships among the variables and estimate their static and dynamic coefficients. The study found a significant positive role for infrastructure financing, and human and physical capital accumulation both of which significantly influenced Africa's economic growth. Intra-African trade, though positive and significant, was found to be less effective in inspiring growth compared to the above growth fundamentals. Trade openness and government spending were the only variables discovered to significantly influence Africa's economic growth in both the short and long run. The study concludes that the traditional approach to regional integration may not provide the best alternative for Africa's economic growth. It, thus, recommends the adoption of a mixed policy approach to regional economic integration to foster Africa's economic growth in the 21st century. The contribution of the study lies in its ability to subject Africa's models of regional integration to practical examination using modern approaches.

We offer new insights on the dynamics of the exchange rate–interest rate differentialfor the case of G7 economies. We show that the nexus is better considered using anasymmetric model, as suggested by a host of previous studies. In addition, we find therole of accounting for structural breaks to be prominent. We also show differences in thenexus between euro and non-euro G7 countries, suggesting heterogeneous monetarypolicies. Thus, we document the strongest evidence for the sticky price hypothesis inJapan and lesser evidence in the euro countries and the United Kingdom, with Canadaconsistently revealing evidence for the flexible price hypothesis.

The “flypaper effect” is undoubtedly one of the most interesting concepts associated with the spending behaviors of subnational governments. Yet, empirical evidence on it in the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is scarce. The current study is the first attempt at providing empirical evidence on the existence of the flypaper effect in the two largest economies in SSA. Employing the two-step system GMM estimator, our findings suggest that the provincial governments in South Africa are more responsive to positive changes in unconditional federal transfers than the state authorities in Nigeria, in terms of providing a higher volume of public goods and services. It is, thus, our submission that public sensitization on the amounts of unconditional federal transfers received by the state governments and their disbursements needs to be adequately enhanced in order to reduce the illusion level or information asymmetry surrounding the use of unconditional federal transfers if the public at the state level is to immensely benefit from the continued flow of unconditional federal transfers from the central to the state governments.