Browsing by Author "Solomon, O. Helen"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
  • No Thumbnail Available
    ItemOpen Access
    Bank Lending Channel and Monetary Policy in Nigeria
    (Elsevier, 2017-07-15) Matousek, Roman; Solomon, O. Helen
    We find that the Central Bank of Nigeria's (CBN) policy of consolidation and restructuring from 2002 to 2008 strengthened the bank lending channel (BLC). We use the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) two step estimator to test the existence of the BLC using a sample of 23 banks.Our results show that the loan growth is more sensitive to changes in bank size and capitalization. Furthermore, the central bank's restructuring activities improved the impact of the BLC.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    ItemOpen Access
    The Bank Lending Channel in South Africa: Lessons from an Emerging Market Economy
    (2018) Solomon, O. Helen; Mullineux, A.; De Jager, P.
    Our paper exploits balance sheet data on the South African banking sector in order to analyse the sensitivity of loan supply through the Bank Lending Channel (BLC). Our results show that bank size, capitalization and efficiency are significant bank characteristics that influence the transmission of contractionary monetary shocks through the banking sector. However, less liquid and less capitalised banks are slower increasing the supply of loans during periods of monetary easing suggesting interest rate asymmetry. There are also differences in the sensitivity of loan categories to monetary tightening. We find that smaller banks are more sensitive to private loans than mortgage loans but the reverse is the case for less capitalised banks. On the other hand, public loans and credit card loans are not sensitive to the BLC. Finally, money supply is a less powerful instrument in the transmission of monetary shocks via the BLC than interest rates.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    ItemMetadata only
    China’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) and Domestic Investment (DI): An Industrial Level Analysis
    (Elsevier, 2015-07) You, Kefei; Solomon, O. Helen
    In the past decade, China's outward foreign direct investment (FDI) has increased significantly. On the other hand, the Chinese economic growth model is heavily reliant on domestic investment. Our study examines the important issue of how China's domestic investment responds to its FDI outflows. We investigate this issue analyzing, for the first time, China's domestic investment at industrial level. We specifically account for the factor of government support given the significant role played by the state in the Chinese economy. Using industrial level data, we further evaluate whether domestic investment reacts to outward FDI differently between state dominated and non-state dominated industries. Our study adopts an accelerator model where the system-Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) is employed for our estimations. Our empirical results suggest that domestic investment responds positively to outward FDI in China, Furthermore, the FDI outflows influences domestic investment differently depending on the level of government support in the particular industries. Such influence is much stronger in state dominated industries than in the non-state dominated ones.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    ItemOpen Access
    The Differential Impact of Public and Private Governance Institutions on the Different Modes of Foreign Investment
    (Taylor and Francis, 2016-07-18) Lysandrou, P.; Solomon, O. Helen; Goda, T.
    This paper examines the respective impacts of public and private governance institutions on foreign direct and foreign portfolio investment inflows. We present two hypotheses: (1) there is a strong correlation between the quality of a country’s public governance institutions and the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) received while the quality of its private governance institutions has no further discernible impact on this correlation; (2) there is a strong correlation between the quality of a country’s public governance institutions and the amount of foreign portfolio investment (FPI) received while the quality of its private governance institutions has a further positive impact on this correlation. Our findings, which are based on panel data analysis, show both hypotheses to be valid.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemEmbargo
    Does the Informal Sector thrive under Autocracy or Democracy: The Case of Nepal
    (2014-07) Shrestha, Sibhaa; Solomon, O. Helen
    Our paper investigates the size and development of the informal sector in Nepal using aggregate data over the period 1991 to 2009. Our estimation using the Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause (MIMIC) model shows that the average size of the informal sector has been about 44%. Nepal has been classified as having a hybrid political regime, so we show the effect that autocracy and democracy has had on the growth of the informal sector. Our results shows that a high degree of autocracy reduced the size of the informal sector by about 2% while greater direct democracy reduced the informal sector by about 10%.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    ItemMetadata only
    Fostering Entrepreneurial Activities through Microfinance in Nigeria
    (European Research Conference on Microfinance (ERCM), 2017-03) Babajide, A.; Obembe, Demola; Solomon, O. Helen; Woldesenbet, K.
    This paper examines the mechanisms by which microfinance loans foster entrepreneurship using social capital. Our empirical data was gathered through questionnaire survey of 317 active small business borrowers in Nigeria. Two models were considered for this study, social capital as a measure of social network and social capital as a measure of trust among group members were tested. On microfinance and social network on entrepreneurial success our study shows that: a) microloans obtained on group membership platform enhances entrepreneurial success of borrowers; b) further probing of the sex of respondents interacted with relationship with loan officers shows that female respondents perceive their relationship with their loan officers yield better entrepreneurial success. Female borrowers also perceived their group membership as the platform for their entrepreneurial success. On pre-loan training and level of education, we found that borrowers with lower levels of education receiving microloans were more successful in their entrepreneurial activities than borrowers with higher levels of education. In the same vein, borrowers with lower levels of education perceived the relationship with their loan officers enhances their entrepreneurial activities more so than respondents with higher levels of education. c) On trust as a measure of social capital, microloan show positive significant impact on entrepreneurial success. Further probing shows that borrowers with lower levels of education are more trusting of their group members than borrowers with higher education levels and this we believe enhances their entrepreneurial success. Also, borrowers with lower level of education believe that group membership enhance their access to microloan although result obtained is not statistically significant at 5 percent. In the same vein, borrowers with lower education levels perceived their group membership enhance their welfare while borrowers with higher education levels do not. We also observed gender differences in loan access such that female borrowers perceived group membership enhances ability to access loans while male respondents did not see any connection between group membership and loan access. Interacting this with entrepreneurial success resulted in a negative influence which implies that access to loan on the platform of group membership does not enhance entrepreneurial success of the respondents. Furthermore, female borrowers perceive group membership enhances their welfare and have positive impact on their entrepreneurial success but not male borrowers. The result also suggests that female borrowers place more trust on their group members which in turn enhance their entrepreneurial success. Further robust check shows that both models are of good fit and statistically significant at 1 percent. This study thus extends the entrepreneurship literature to microfinance and provides empirical insight into the significance of social capital in facilitating microfinance contribution to business creation and growth.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    ItemOpen Access
    The Impact of Social Media on Economic Growth
    (Taylor and Francis, 2015-11-16) Dell'Anno, Roberto; Rayna, Thierry; Solomon, O. Helen
    This article attempts to investigate the impact of social media (SM) on economic growth. Using information obtained from memberships to social networks, we find that SM has a negative and significant impact on economic growth. This provides evidence in favour of our hypothesis that SM increases the search costs for information and also increases the substitution effect from labour to leisure thereby producing a negative impact on growth.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    ItemMetadata only
    Informality, Inequality and ICT in Transition economies
    (Routledge, 2015) Dell'Anno, Roberto; Solomon, O. Helen
    In this paper, we examine the role of the quality of institutional infrastructure and information and communication technology (ICT) in the relationship between the size of the informal sector (IS) and income inequality. Following our results, the sign of the relationship between IS and income inequality depends on the quality of institutions. When institutions are weak, agents invest less human capital and ICT in the formal sector (FS), thereby reducing income inequality. Utilizing panel data for sixteen transition countries we show that the relationship between the size of the IS and the level of income inequality is ambiguous. Our findings highlight the problem of measuring the relative size of the IS which is a hidden entity. We control for robustness of our findings using alternative proxies of ICT, human capital, and institutional quality and some interaction terms among these variables.