The purpose of this research was to investigate the nature of the relationship between board diversity and financial performance of deposit money Banks quoted on the Nigerian stock exchange. Based on extensive review of the literature, three board diversity variables were identified namely gender (measured by the proportion of women in the boardroom), non-executive directors (measured by the proportion of non-executive directors that make up the boardroom) and board size. Financial performance was measured using Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE). The Fixed effects Panel data regression model was used to test the nature of relationship between the board diversity variables and the financial performance variables, using secondary data from the Banks annual financial statements covering the period from 2006-2017. The result of the analysis showed that gender diversity has a statistically significant positive impact on banks financial performance. On the other hand, the study also indicated that non-executive directors and board size do not have a significant impact on banks performance. Based on the findings from this study, it was therefore recommended that quoted deposit money banks in Nigeria should raise female proportions in their boardroom so as to improve financial performance.

This study aims to investigate the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in the UK using quarterly data from 1963q1 to 2015q1. Three variables were used as proxies for financial sector development, namely, ratios of broad money supply to GDP, ratios of private sector credit to GDP and the ratios of stock market capitalization to GDP.  Economic growth was measured using real GDP per capita. In order to achieve stated aim, the study employed the Johansen Cointegration test and the Granger causality test within a vector error correction framework (VEC) to test for the existence (or not) of a long run relationship as well as the direction of causality between financial development and economic growth. The result from the Cointegration test indicates that there is a stable long run equilibrium relationship between financial development and economic growth in the UK. The Granger causality test presents evidence of a bidirectional causality. This suggests that financial development and economic growth are mutually causal, that is, causality runs from both side which is in line with the feedback hypothesis in the literature which argue that financial development and economic growth exhibits a two-way causal relationship. In terms of each individual variable, the study finds that while bank credit to the private sector and stock market capitalisation Granger cause GDP per capita, GDP per capita on the other hand, Granger causes broad money supply.