While the hedonic analysis has been used extensively to analyze the housing markets in developed countries, it has relatively few applications to African housing markets. The need to study housing markets in Africa cannot be overemphasized. This paper presents the results of a hedonic price analysis of the Lagos, Nigeria, housing market. A Box-Cox transformation technique was employed for the analysis. Implicit prices for housing attributes were estimated to determine their impacts on rental rates in Lagos. The results indicate that both structural and environmental characteristics of a house affect its rent in Lagos. Further, structural characteristics appear to be more important than environmental characteristics in the market studied. These results are generally similar to the results obtained for developed countries, except that environmental attributes seem to be more important in developed countries than this study shows. Some policy implications of the hedonic analysis are briefly discussed. I.

This paper examines dynamic interactionsbetween economic policy uncertainty and the housing market returns for Japan using quarterly data running from 1990Q1through 2012Q4. Specifically, the study adopts the BEKK-GARCH model to test for causality-in-mean and i-variance between economic policy uncertainty and housing market returns. The sample period is divided into two namely -pre-crisis (1990Q1 through 1999Q4) and postcrisis period (2001Q1 through 2012Q4) in order to assess the impact of the Asian financial crisis. The results provide evidence of causality-in-mean from economic policy uncertainty to housing returns for pre-crisis period. Similarly, the show evidence of causality-in-mean from housing returns to economic policy uncertainty for postcrisis period. The results further reveal evidence of bi-directional causality-in-variance between economic policy uncertainty and housing market for the full sample period and the pre-crisis period. However, there is evidence of causality-in-variance from housing market returns to economic policy uncertainty for the post-crisis period. The empirical findings of this study suggest that investors should take into consideration economic policy uncertaintieswhen forming their investment portfolios.

The determinants of crime have been an area of numerous studies over time. In spite of this volume of work, interest in the causes of crime continues to persist. This paper investigates the determinants of variations in crime rates in the United States using cross-sectional state-level data. It explores the role of government spending and socioeconomic variables and compares these determinants for the three years 1990, 2000, and 2010 to determine whether there have been changes in the impact of these variables in these years. State level data is used for the statistical analysis. The result shows that the determinants of crime varied by both the category of crime and the period of study. In addition, government spending on welfare and education were not significant in 1990, but become more significant for the 2000 and 2010 samples.

Academic dishonesty is one of the most evasive student behaviors facing faculty and administrators in schools. Dishonest behavior in schools is an ethical issue of concern to the academic and business communities. Various methods have been used to try to understand and combat academic dishonesty. In some cases, severe punishments have been used with mixed results. An understanding of students' attitude and perceptions about academic dishonesty is essential in determining the proper solution to academic dishonesty. This study looks at student perceptions of academic dishonesty at numerous colleges and universities in South East and Northern part of Nigeria. It also evaluates how the perceptions of male students may vary from those of female students. In addition to these, it seeks to identify some factors that predict students' attitudes toward academic dishonesty.

This paper examines the empirical relationship between military spending and unemployment rates for a panel of 8 African countries using the panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) approach. This study adopts the PSTR model because of its ability to account for nonlinearity and/or heterogeneity and time instability that may be present in the panel. The PSTR model was estimated with a model with one transition function and one location parameter as dictated by the diagnostic tests. The diagnostic tests reveal that the relationship between unemployment rates and military spending is nonlinear. The results reveal that increases in military spending have significantly positive effect on unemployment rates in regime one; associated with low inflationary periods. However, in the second regime or high inflationary periods, increases in military spending deter unemployment. These results confirm that the relationship between unemployment rates and military spending is asymmetric and hence should be modeled accordingly. Policy wise, the results suggest that military spending should be increased during low inflation regime to mitigate the problem of unemployment. However, military spending is inconsequential during high inflation regime.