In this article, we examined the effect of criminal activities on firms’ market power in Nigerian banking industry. Data sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistics, Nigerian Police force, annual report and accounts of commercial banks in Nigeria were analysed using autoregressive distributed lag-bound test methodology. The study revealed that crime, innovation, market size and capital requirements had negative relationship with firms’ market power in the long run. Criminal activity had no significant effect on firms’ power, while other variables had significant effects on market power. However, in the short run, crime had positive effect on firm’s power, while other variables had negative effect. Meanwhile, all the variables with the exception of innovation had significant effect on firm’s power. The previous period crime rate had significant and positive effect on current period of firm’s market power. This means a firm that employs sophisticated security devices would increase in market share by wooing more customers through deposit safety guaranteed. Consequently, such a firm enjoyed market power in the industry. While, in the long run, the market power disappeared, because most firms would have increased their security level. Henceforth, an attempt to provide for more sophisticated security devices would bring down normal profit in the long run. Therefore, such actions have no value to woo more customers. The study, therefore, concluded that while firms could consider criminal activities as a relevant variable in the short-run decision-making, such a variable becomes irrelevant in the long-run decision-making.

This paper presents the role of capital controls in the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth in developing countries. Data of forty-four ( 44) developing countries for the period of 2005-2014 were sourced and analysed using panel generalized method of moments and two stage least square. The result revealed that entrepreneurship had a robust, positive and significant effect on economic growth. In addition, the study confirmed that the intensity of capital controls matter could further strengthen the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth in developing countries. These results were not only consistent with intuition and experience, but also with empirical findings of the previous studies. Theoretically, it confirmed the view of Keynesian economists that promote the use of capital controls in an economy. Contribution/ Originality:This study is one of the few studies to provide a comparative analysis between African and other developing countries. It answers the following questions: What is the effect of entrepreneurship on economic growth in developing countries? Are there any dynamic effects of capital controls on economic growth in selected developing countries?

The study determined the degree of competition in the banking sector between 1990 and 2009 using Panzar and Rosse (PR) methodology. The data for the study were obtained from the annual reports and statement of accounts of fifteen commercial banks in Nigeria which were purposively selected for the study. The data collected were analysed using dynamic panel generalised method of moment estimation technique with fixed effect. The results of the analysis showed that the Nigerian commercial banks were characterised by monopolistic competition with H-statistic significantly different from zero for all sample periods and sub-sample periods. The value of H-statistic ranged between 0.0925 and 0.1168. The study concluded that the banking industry in Nigeria exhibited monopolistic competition which supports the results obtained from previous studies in the developed economies.

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This study examines the effect of foreign aids on poverty level in Nigeria using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. Data spanned from 1980-2015 were sourced from World Bank development indicators, Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin and National Bureau of Statistics. From the ARDL Bound test approach to co-integration, the result of the study showed that foreign aids help in reducing poverty, but does not have a significant effect on the level of poverty in Nigeria. The study therefore argued that foreign aids could be effective in Nigeria if multilateral and multidimensional aids system were adopted which should be directed to different areas in the Nigerian economy. Also, proper care and monitoring needs to be put in place in order to checkmate any attempt for corruption especially in a situation where private individuals would divert foreign aids to solve private needs.