Towards An Understanding of the Dynamics of Anglo-Nigerian Trade Relations, 1971 To 1990 (Published)
Nigerian-British Trade relations spanned the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial period. The main thrust of the paper is to irradiate the dynamics of Anglo-Nigerian Trade Relations during the period, 1971 to 1990. The paper examines the trade interactions in commodities especially imports and exports that occurred between Nigeria and Britain and looks at the evolving nature of the relations during the period. It also highlights the pattern of dependency in Anglo-Nigerian Trade relations and how the peculiarities of the period affected the character of the relations. The paper concluded by submitting that Anglo-Nigerian Trade relations during 1971 to1990 were more beneficial to Britain than Nigeria because of disequilibrium in Trade Relations, payment, difficulties on the part of Nigeria and her failure to meaningfully diversity its exports, which had over-concentration on oil to the relative sheer neglect of agricultur., There is therefore need to address those areas so as to redress the imbalance.
Keywords: Anglo-Nigerian, Dynamics, Exports, Imports, Trade Imbalance, Trade Relations
EXCHANGE RATE AND TRADE BALANCE IN GHANA- TESTING THE VALIDITY OF THE MARSHALL LERNER CONDITION (Published)
Currency depreciation has been lauded as a means of improving a country’s trade balance borrowing from the Marshall Lerner Condition that the sum of the elasticity or the coefficient of the trade balance in respect of the exchange rate be greater or equal to unity. This paper examined exchange rate and trade balance in Ghana testing the validity of the Marshall Lerner Condition at aggregate level. The data spanned from 1980-2013 sourced from World Development Indicators. Co integration and vector error correction mechanism (VECM) was used to estimate the short as well as the long run parameters. The result of the findings showed that real effective exchange is negatively linked to trade balance in long run. In the short run the lag one coefficient shows a positive sign implying that trade balance deteriorate in the short run due to some contractual obligations already signed by the domestic country with the trading partners. However in the long run the coefficient shows that a depreciation of cedi all things being equal will lead to an improvement in Ghana’s trade balance. Though the Marshall Lerner condition is not met in Ghana because of the REER coefficient less than unity but evidence from the result indicates that depreciation can be used to improve on the trade balance. The estimated coefficient of the error correction term is -0.3696 which implies that the speed of adjustment is approximately 37. percent per quarter. This negative and significant coefficient is an indication that co integrating relationship exists among the variables. The paper recommends that Ghana should devalue its currency to move from the deficit side of the J curve to the surplus side since evidence from the result shows that depreciation or devaluation can substantially improves the trade balance in the long run.
Keywords: Currency depreciation, Exports, Imports, Income, Marshall Lerner Condition, Trade balance
SHIFTING GLOBAL ECONOMIC PARADIGM (Published)
The 21st century was started with the dawn of a new economic puzzle of China’s fast economic growth. It has surprised the economists. The Chinese constant upward growth has shifted economic paradigm and the axis of growth appear to have been shifted from the western hemisphere to the eastern hemisphere. Some economists term it a 21st century miracle. The author has determined to test this miracle through empirical framework. Main research question of this study to explore the answer of the question why China is recording consistent rapid economic growth? Is this growth in the same way as other developed countries experienced in the past or is it a new phenomenon-a shift in global economic paradigm.The objective of this empirical analysis is to investigate into the causes of fast economic growth of China in the context whether this growth pattern is a normal phenomenon or an indicator of shifting global economic paradigm.Our study is spread over a period starting from 1980 to 2011 because of the introduction of economic reforms and massive economic growth. We have collected data from different sources such as China Bureau of National Statistics, IMF, World Bank and relevant research Journals and books. The selected variables for this research paper are: labour productivity, investment, exports, Research and Development expenses, capital stock, open door policy, real exchange rate and US GDP. We used ordinary least square (OLS) model to measure change in the selected variables. Five tests were used to test the stability of the model. The Econometric results show that international trade and investment in capital stock and R&D expenses by Chinese Government are the major determinants, which are responsible for enhancing labour productivity and output in the long-run, Similarly, real exchange rate appears as an important determinant to explain change in output in the long-run
Keywords: China, Exports, Investment, Labour productivity, Open door policy, Output, R&D