Browsing by Author "Abbey, E."
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Item Central Bank Independence, Inflation, and Poverty in Africa(SAGE, 2022) Gyeke-Dako, A.; Agbloyor, E.K.; Agoba, A.M.; Turkson, F.; Abbey, E.This article discusses the extent to which central bank independence (CBI) can be used to mitigate the regressive nature of inflation. Using 44 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from the period 1970–2012, the article first examines whether CBI has any influence on inflation by distinguishing between legal independence and governor turnover rates. The evidence shows that CBI helps control inflation, and that inflation generally reduces poverty, and this effect is even stronger, in an environment of low CBI.Item Choice of household adaptation strategies to flood risk management in Accra, Ghana(City and Environment Interactions, 2019) Twerefou, D.K.; Adu-Danso, E.; Abbey, E.; Dovie, B.D.In this paper, we discuss the psychological and socio-economic factors as well as the constraints that inhibit private precautionary flood-risk mitigation measures among urban households in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area of Ghana within the Protection Motivation framework. The results show that threat appraisal has mixed effects on the decisions by households to adopt a damage protection measure against flooding. With regards to coping appraisal, the study found that households who do not feel helpless about flooding in the neighbourhood resort to some struc tural measures such as reinforcing their house against flood damage. The study also finds that socio-economic factors have an overall positive effect on protective behaviour. Additionally, structural measures taken by the public sector to provide protection against damage from a flood are shown to complement the adoption of some specific private pro tective measures such as clearing drains and sandbagging by households. We, therefore, recommend policy choices to focus on the provision of the needed community-level flood protection infrastructure since it stimulates private flood precautionary measuresItem Determinants of the level of informality amongst female street food vendors in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from two regions in Ghana(Cities, 2023) Ashaley-Nikoi, J.; Abbey, E.This paper relied on data from the food service industry in Ghana to measure the extent of informality as well as to determine the motivations and challenges that influence selection into informal entrepreneurship. Because of the need to guarantee food safety and hygiene and protect the consuming public, enterprises in the food service industry are required to undergo some practices and procedures that limit the conventional measures of informality in describing them correctly. By varying this conventional definition, we showed that informality can more appropriately be measured in the food service industry. Using data from 406 female street food vendors in Ghana’s Greater Accra and Central regions, we show that approximately 62 % of enterprises in the food service industry tend to be wholly informal. We again found that higher levels of informalization tend to be associated with survivalist and opportunist motivations as well as some economic and spatial challenges, and this is similar to characteristics of informal firms measured using the well-known conventional definitions. One practical implication of our finding is that a sector-specific definition may be appropriate when measuring informality in the food service industry. Our findings show that by varying this definition, many of the known characteristics of informalization can still be realized.Item Does foreign ownership enhance technological innovation amongst manufacturing firms in Sub- Saharan Africa?(Taylor & Francis Group, 2022) Adu-Danso, E.; Abbey, E.Many African nations have over time relied on the use of foreign ownership to enhance technological innovation in manufacturing firms. The literature on the subject is, however, mixed. While foreign- owned firms can benefit from the technological innovations of foreign sources because of their superior nature relative to local innovation systems, these innovations may not be forthcoming for several reasons, including an uncompetitive business environment. In this paper, we test this hypothesis for Sub- Saharan Africa by relying on a sample of 1157 manufacturing firms from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. By defining technological innovation as product and process innovations and using the Probit estimator, we find that foreign-owned firms are less likely to introduce product innovation. For process innovation, we did not find foreign ownership to have a significant effect. These findings have some implications for policy. First, the paper throws a spotlight on the kinds of foreign affiliations in the manufacturing sector of Africa and suggests that there must be a deliberate effort to attract the forms that are beneficial to local innovation systems. Second, the paper finds that an improvement in the general business environment can be crucial in attracting foreign firms that will improve local innovation systems.Item Fishery Value Chain Analysis: Ghana(FAO. Rome, Italy, 2012) Antwi-Asare, T.O.; Abbey, E.Item Gender Perspectives of Male Immigrant Healthcare Assistants in Norwegian Elderly Care(Journal of Comparative Social Work, 2021) Hervie, V.M.; Abbey, E.; Dadzie, N.K.M.Exploring gender and feminization in healthcare professions within welfare institutions is an important issue. This article explores the experiences of male immigrant healthcare assistants with racialized features in Norwegian elderly care. A key narrative theme was how notions such as gender and categories of class reinforce structural power relationships, positioning male immigrants in elderly care as “lacking” and/or vulnerable with respect to self-esteem. In the analysis, participants’ experiences were perceived, contested, and negotiated within the themes of: (a) Gender Identities: Negotiations among male immigrant healthcare assistants, and (b) The interwoven process of gender and class. Participatory parity (Fraser, 2008) and perspectives of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989) were applied to explore how notions of gender and categories of class limit and reinforce power relationships. The analysis sheds light on how such notions and categories reinforce structural power relationships. Furthermore, the article argues that understanding the impact of gender on the Norwegian care sector must address how specific categories of individuals are affected, in addition to the attendant labour market challenges.Item Impact of stock market development on economic growth: Evidence from selected sub‑Saharan African countries(Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, 2019-03-29) Twerefou, D.K.; Abbey, E.; Codjoe, E.A.; Ngotho, P.S.This paper examines the impact of stock market development on economic growth in Sub‑Saharan Africa using a balanced panel data of five selected countries over the period 1993 – 2013 and the system generalised method of moments dynamic panel estimation framework. The paper finds a positive impact of stock market development proxied by the turnover ratio of domestic shares and market capitalization on economic growth though minimal. Furthermore, investment, lagged gross domestic product and human capital were found to have a significantly positive impact on growth while trade and foreign direct investment negatively impacted on growth, even though the results for foreign direct investment is not significant in all the models and consequently, not very robust. There should be policy measures aimed at enhancing economic growth using the development of the stocks market as a channel. Such policies should focus on developing the appropriate mix of taxation of investors as well as the development of requisite technology, institutional and regulatory framework that will facilitate an increase in the size and liquidity of the market in the sub‑region.Item Male Allyship within the Context of Local Governance: A Case of Wenchi Municipality in Ghana(The International Journal of Community Diversity, 2023) Gyan, C.; Yeboah, A.S.; Abbey, E.; Hervie, V.M.Despite significant efforts in promoting gender equality globally, gender disparities still exist in the political, social, and economic realms of both developed and developing countries. Women are still underrepresented in governance throughout the world. In the Ghanaian context, the beliefs and behaviors of men could be instrumental in facilitating and/or impeding women’s active participation in local governance. From a constructivist perspective, this study qualitatively explored men’s perspectives on women’s involvement in local governance in the Wenchi municipality of Ghana. The study interviewed respondents who are actively engaged in the local governance process in the municipality. The respondents’ experiences and thoughts about women’s involvement in local governance were analyzed. The study finds that there is a huge disparity in women’s participation in local governance in the municipality. It also finds that these disparities are fueled and institutionalized by the existing patriarchal system in Ghana. The study results imply that involving men in the efforts geared toward breaking barriers to women’s involvement in local governance and increasing the level of women’s participation requires the collective efforts of all stakeholder groups, especially men. The study therefore recommends that conscious efforts be made to integrate women in the local governance system because women have more to offer if given the opportunityItem What factors hamper innovation amongst SMEs in Kenya?(Taylor & Francis Group, 2022) Abbey, E.; Adu-Danso, E.While much of the evidence about innovation amongst SMEs in many developing countries have sought to examine the factors that enhance the propensity of a firm to innovate, far less effort has gone into assessing the factors that hamper it. This paper follows the latter literature to provide an explanation of firm innovation failure amongst SMEs in Kenya by focusing exclusively on external obstacles. By relying on the World Bank Enterprise Surveys and defining innovation as involving product and process innovation, we showed that factors such as political instability and infrastructure, measured as access to electricity, can be critical to firm innovation. We also found that the effects could be context-specific, as the results differ based on various firm characteristics, including firm type, sector, age and size. Our findings provide important policy implications about firm innovation in Kenya as well as the understanding that providing a more conducive business environment is not only critical to enhancing various firm activities but also enhancing innovation performance.