RESUMO
The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act was introduced by the United States of America to enable beneficiary countries to boost their export volumes and make way for growth and development. The study aims at estimating the effect of the Act on export from sub-Saharan African countries to the United States of America considering the role of credit. A panel data for 49 countries sourced from IMF DOTS, WDI, and CEPII for the period 1980 to 2020 was employed. Using the GMM, and the differences in differences estimation techniques, the findings showed that the AGOA trade preference has not achieved the purpose for which it was introduced. It is however found that export to the United States can be improved under the trade preference if credit is provided to the private sector. It is therefore recommended that credit accessibility should be made easy to make way for private sector investment in the production process to feed the export sector.
RESUMO
This study examines the effect of mobile money transactions on banking sector performance in Ghana using monthly data for the period 2015-2020. A composite index of banking sector performance was created from three indicators namely; depth, stability and efficiency of the banking sector. Using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds test for cointegration, the Error Correction Model (ECM) and impulse responses analysis, the findings revealed that mobile money transaction has a detrimental effect on banking sector performance. Findings from the disaggregated components indicate that mobile money transactions hurt banking sector efficiency, while its effect on banking sector depth and stability is insignificant in the long run. It is concluded that the implication varies from one indicator to another concerning the direction and magnitude of the influence. The study, therefore, recommends that banks exercise much caution in their decision to consider adopting mobile money-based services when designing their business models.
