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EU-ACP ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENTS: Implications for Trade and Development in West Africa
By Adenikinju F. O. and Olumuyiwa B. Alaba, Department of Economics, University of Ibadan,Ibadan, Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the impact of the EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) on countries in West Africa. The EPA will replace the Lome Convention and establish a Free Trade between EU and ECOWAS for a period of 12 years starting from January 2008. The empirical analyses carried out in this paper show very clearly that the implementation of the EPA has non-marginal implication for the ECOWAS countries. While, the intensity of the impact of the partnership agreements varies across the countries, most of the countries will suffer from loss of revenue, trade diversion and de-industrialisation. Simulation for Nigeria, using a CGE model clearly shows that some manufacturing subsectors will contract and employment will fall in such sectors. The paper therefore makes a clear case for the protection of these sectors. This is to minimise the negative impacts that are likely to arise from EPAs' which should clearly be an important goal of the current EPAs' negotiations.
WAGE DETERMINATION IN NIGERIAN MANUFACTURING SECTOR:A Test of Competing Theories
By Ben. E. Aigbokhan, Department of Economics, Ambrose Alli University Ekpoma, Nigeria
ABSTRACT
The Nigerian labour market, like other sectors of the economy witnessed dramatic changes, following the introduction of structural adjustment programme (SAP). Two decades after SAP was implemented, unemployment has continued to be a major policy concern of government. Economic theory suggests that wage policy could be an instrument in influencing the level of unemployment in an economy. In 1998 and 2000, the Federal Government implemented two jumbo salary increases which substantially raised minimum salaries in the public sector. This had further implications for wages and employment in the formal private sector of the economy. Rather than adjust downwards in the face of growing unemployment, wages in the economy have risen. This paper, focusing on the wage determination process in the manufacturing sector, provides possible answers to the question: "Why would wages not adjust to equate labour demand to labour supply"?
Drawing inspiration from the efficiency wage and rent-sharing literature, the paper applies the production function and earnings function approaches to examine wage determination process in the manufacturing sector. Both ordinary least squares and instrumental two-stage least squares techniques were used.Results from the analyses show that there is a positive and significant relation between relative wage and productivity, as predicted by the efficiency wage model, and with unionisation as predicted by the rent-sharing model. These are in addition to standard human capital model.
TRADE,INVESTMENT AND GROWTH IN AFRICA: Patterns, Trends and Puzzles
By T. Ademola Oyejide and E. Olawale Ogunkola,Trade Policy Research and Training Programme (TPRTP), Department of Economics, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
This paper examines and attempts to explain African growth performance; analyse African trade and investment patterns and trends within the global context and examines the linkages among trade, investment and growth. Based on the review of literature and additional evidence from the analysis of African data at aggregate, as well as at regional levels, it concludes that further research is required to establish the veracity of the claim that Africa is marginalised in global trade and investment flows. The puzzles (i.e. hypothesised linkages, which appear to be challenged by the observed empirical trends and patterns) in the analysis of the linkages among trade, investment and growth also require further efforts to solve.
GLOBALISATION AND THE NIGERIAN ECONOMY: Behaviour of the State and the Economic and Social Consequences
By Abdul-Ganiyu Garba Department of Economics,Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
This article uses game theory to analyse the behaviour of the Nigerian state after 1986 in the defining games of global interdependence. The theoretical analysis indicates that the government behaviour is a combination of international passivity; domestic collusion in some state-non-state games and Stackelberg leadership in most other state-non-state games. The empirical analysis indicates that international passivity generates internal, fiscal and external imbalances, undermines the international competitiveness of the Nigerian economy and generates high and sustained social costs in oil and gas. In addition, it tends to generate economic regression-conflict cycles that undermines the capacity of the nation to respond strategically to globalisation. Further theoretical analysis indicates that the Nigerian state is unlikely to act strategically in the interest of the populace because of the twin problems of national failure and asymmetric information, which create a moral hazard situation in which the marginalised "non-state principals" (the people) cannot make the government act strategically to secure national or social goals or maintain the threshold of social responsibility required for their empowerment. Paradoxically, the solutions to the moral hazard problem lie with the marginalised non-state principals who must in addition, confront the challenge of building a modern state on the ossified relations and structures of a Nigeria marginalised in the process of globalisation.
GENDER ISSUES AND THE CHALLENGES OF DEVELOPMENT IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
By P. Kassey Garba Department of Economics, University of Ibadan,Ibadan, Nigeria.
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