Xtra Supervisors

News from Nigeria

  • Falling oil prices: CBN moves to protect the economy...more
Falling oil prices sends bad news signals to investors who still remember the adverse effect of a crisis and the vulnerability of the economy within which they invest. In addition falling oil prices in the face of rising debts, coupled with the spate of crime across the country and a host of other problems makes the country a destination for investment that is not so favorable.

  • BDCs appeal to the CBN for increased FOREX sales...more
The reduction in the supply of FOREX would have the effect of increasing the pressure of depreciation on the exchange rate and thus stifle imports. However when this is contrasted with the expected sterilization of mature AMCON bond it is clear that the CBN is bent on preventing further depreciation of the exchange rate.

  • Sovereign Wealth Fund, Declining Oil Prices and Manufacturing Sector Deficit
The minister of finance, Okonjo Iweala, was noted to have asserted that the government is stabilizing the economy [read more here] but the IPWA PLC managing director laments the retardation in the manufacturing sector [read more here]. The combination of these begs the question. What manner of economic stability is compatible with a decline in the manufacturing sector and if such exists what implications does it have for the implications of monetary and fiscal policy on industrialization.

New Research Themes

  • Cross Border Spillovers, Macroeconomic Convergence and Economic growth in West Africa
In the light of the current events happening in West Africa, the Boko Haram scourge, the oil sector development and the political upheavals in West African countries, there is the need to investigate how these events spill from one country to another and how they affect the socio-political and economic atmosphere in each nation and the goal of convergence necessary for the continued survival of the ECOWAS.

    • Stock Exchange Dynamics, Investor Behaviour and Macroeconomic Stability
    The subprime financial crisis that emanated from the US and hit most of the economies of the world had its impact reflected in the stock market of the affected countries. Investors became bullish, there was a shortage of credit and capital flight resulted in sustained depreciation of the exchange rate and speculative attacks.

  • Federal Systems, Internal Conflict and Economic Growth
Countries operating federal systems like Nigeria, tend to be centralized and this raises the tendency for ethnic-centrism and marginalization and the resulting effect of this is civil conflict. On the basis of this one could hypothesize that conflicts are the result of centralization and that decentralization via the devolution of powers could stem the tide of incessant conflicts.

  • Growth, Unemployment and Poverty
Nigeria, early this year, was labelled the richest country in Africa after the rebasing of its real GDP. Surprising enough Nigeria still ranks high on the poverty headcount index (with a value of 84.5% in 2010) and has an estimated youth unemployment rate of 50%. It is hence pertinent to explain the kind of growth that would make a country the richest in Africa and yet record high levels of poverty and unemployment.

  • Domestic Productive Capacity, International Trade and Macroeconomic Vulnerability/Resilience
Foreign direct investment is expected to be one of the major drives of economic growth in Nigeria but this comes at the cost of being exposed to dangerous shocks from the global economic community. While policy makers may suggest the development of a sovereign wealth fund to make the country resilient to such shocks the Nigerian economy is still vulnerable to such shocks as its domestic productive capacity is poor as witnessed by high levels of unemployment given a youthful population and large infrastructural deficits.

For more themes go to: Research Themes

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