Browsing by Author "Baffour, P.T."
Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Effect of HIV/AIDS on Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recent Evidence(International Advances in Economic Research, 2019-11-26) Nketiah-Amponsah, E.; Abubakari, M.; Baffour, P.T.This paper examines the effect of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) on economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) using data from 46 SSA countries spanning the period 2000–2015. Results based on the system-generalized method of moments estimation showed that a 1% increase in the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in SSA decreased the growth in per capita income by 0.47%. The impact of HIV/AIDS on economic growth was felt most in Eastern Africa followed by West Africa, although the prevalence rate was highest in Southern Africa. In particular, a 1% increase in the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS in Eastern Africa and West Africa retarded growth in per capita income by 0.64% and 0.47%, respectively, over the study period. The paper suggests that for SSA to minimize the impact of HIV/AIDS prevalence on growth, African governments should take a cue from the southern African countries by making anti-retroviral drugs more accessible and affordable to persons living with the disease.Item Financial Development and the Social Cost of Financial Intermediation in Africa(Journal of African Business, 2018-03) Gyeke-Dako, A.; Agbloyor, E.K.; Turkson, F.E.; Baffour, P.T.This article investigates the effect of financial development on the social costs of financial intermediation across a large number of banks in Africa. The study distinguishes between countries that are financially developed and those that are not financially developed to examine the impact of financial development on the social costs of financial intermediation. A sample of 260 banks from 29 countries in Africa is used over an 8-year period from 2006 to 2013. We employ both Random Effect and GMM techniques to resolve the issues of unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity. We observe that overall, financial development reduces the social costs of intermediation. We also determine that the social costs of intermediation are lower for countries that have more developed financial systems compared to those with less developed financial systems. Our study is useful because it suggests that if countries want to reduce their social costs of intermediation, they should develop their financial systems.Item Gender Differences in Earnings Rewards to Personality Traits in Wage-employment and Self employment Labour Markets(SAGE, 2021) Mohammed, I.; Baffour, P.T.; Rahaman, W.A.In an extensive review of wage determination papers, it is concluded that the standard demographic and human capital factors explain little of earning differentials. Consequently, there is a growing inter est among economists to include non-cognitive skills measured by personality traits in recent empirical literature to explain variations in earnings. In a bid to contribute empirical evidence to this strand of lit erature, this study examines the associations between the Big-Five personality traits (i.e., agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, extraversion and neuroticism) and earnings, using the World Bank’s Skills towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) data on Ghana. The study employed regression tech niques to estimate a series of semi-logarithmic wage equations that include demographic and human capital factors and the Big-Five personality traits to determine how important these factors are in explaining wage and self-employment earnings. Furthermore, the estimations of the wage equations are done separately for males and females to highlight any gender differences in the way personality traits contribute to earnings. Findings are largely consistent with the literature but uniquely demonstrate that in a power-distant culture like Ghana, where, traditionally, girl-child education has been relegated to the background, agreeable females, and not males, are rewarded in the formal wage employment labour market. However, in the informal self-employment labour market, conscientious males, and not females, are positively rewarded with higher earnings. These unique findings contribute to our under standing of the gender differences in the relative importance of non-cognitive skills in the formal and informal labour markets.Item A Gendered Perspective of Underemployment in Ghana(Ghana Social Science Journal, 2016) Baffour, P.T.; Quartey, P.Globally, studies have shown that inclusive growth is necessary for poverty reduction. Ghana until recently was a success story in Africa due to its achievement of high and sustained economic growth and impressive poverty reduction. Growth has however not been inclusive. With a high labour force participation rate, most jobs are created in the informal sector where labour is underutilised. Although both unemployment and underemployment are forms of labour underutilisation, research has over the years focused on unemployment. Using the Ghana Living Standards Survey Six (GLSS 6), this paper employs a multinomial logistic regression model within a labour underutilisation framework to investigate underemployment in Ghana from a gendered perspective. Consistent with previous studies, this study finds underemployment to be a rural phenomenon in Ghana. Women, unlike men, face a higher probability of being in income-related underemployment in all employment types. In addition, all levels of education are observed to increase the likelihood of time-related underemployment, yet in accordance with the human capital theory, the probability of income-related underemployment is observed to decline with education.Item Influences of parental occupation on children’s occupational choices(International Journal of Social Economics, 2023) Rahaman, W.A.; Mohammed, I.; Turkson, F.E.; Baffour, P.T.Purpose – This study examines the relationships between parents’ and children’s occupations to determine the existence of intergenerational transmission of occupations. Design/methodology/approach – To achieve the purpose of the study, four predominant occupational types based on the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO): agriculture and forestry; services and sales; managerial/administrative; and professional/technical are examined using data from the latest (7th) round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS). Two complementary methods involving the correlational analysis and regression-based techniques are used. Findings – The findings indicate the presence of parental influences on children’s occupational choices (same sex and cross-sex) in the Ghanaian labour market, with maternals and same-sector effects having a more substantial influence on children’s occupational choices, especially in agriculture and forestry, and services and sales sectors. Research limitations/implications – The lack of panel data in observing children’s occupational choices over time makes it challenging to assume direct causation. Originality/value – The study is the first to highlight the relative strengths of paternal influence (father’s effect) and maternal impact (mother’s effect) on sons’ and daughters’ occupational choices in Africa. The findings have several implications for intergenerational (im)mobility of occupations including how policymakers can make career guidance more effective. Peer review – The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ IJSE-10-2022-0705Item Innovation and employment in manufacturing and service firms in Ghana(Small Business Economics, 2018-11) Baffour, P.T.; Turkson, E.F.; Gyeke-Dako, A.; Oduro, A.D.; Abbey, E.N.While the importance of innovation as a primary source of economic growth has never been in dispute, its impact on employment has remained indeterminate. On one hand, the pessimists indicate that firm innovation destroys jobs because of the immediate indirect labour-saving nature of the effect of innovation, while the optimists argue that there are several compensation mechanisms that are known to counterbalance the initial effect of innovation and render the final effect indeterminate. Using data on a panel of 421 firms in Ghana, the paper investigates the relationship between innovation introduced at the firm level and employment. Relying on the panel fixed effects and Hausman-Taylor estimation techniques, this study finds a robust statistically significant positive impact of product innovation on employment but not for process innovation. In terms of policy relevance, this finding reemphasizes the need for policy makers in Ghana to intensity efforts in promoting technology diffusion particularly through FDI. This study thus contributes to the literature on innovation in Africa by providing evidence on why technological innovation in the form of product innovation can be a panacea to alleviating employment challenges in Ghana.Item Regional integration and non-tariff barriers to Intra-Sub-Saharan Africa trade(The World Economy, 2022) Turkson, E.; Oduro, A.D.; Baffour, P.T.; Quartey, P.The paper assesses the ex-post trade effect of sub-regional trade agreements (RTAs), financial integration and other non-tariff barriers on intra-regional trade involving 43 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. The objective is to find out if RTAs within SSA had increased trade flows to inform current efforts of establishing a successful continental free trade area in SSA. Estimating a gravity model augmented with measures of trade agreements and financial integration, the paper made use of bilateral trade flows and key gravity covariates from CEPII database over the period 1960–2015. After controlling for the endogeneity of the trade agreement dummy, multilateral price resistance and zero-valued trade flows, we find RTAs within SSA and especially among Economic Community of West Afri can States and Southern Africa Development Community members to have had a positive and significant impact on bilateral trade. Financially integrated trading partners also traded more, while we also found distance, landlocked-ness, common currency and colonial link to have an impact on trade costs and bilateral trade flows within SSA. The results indicate the need to focus on policies to expand and integrate regional markets in SSA by removing impediments to trade and improving on trade facilitation measures to significantly improve trade performance under the newly established African Continental Free Trade Area.Item The role of personality traits in predicting days lost due to illness: evidence from the World Bank’s Skills toward Employment and Productivity survey(International Review of Economics, 2019-09-30) Rahaman, W.A.; Mohammed, I.; Baffour, P.T.This paper examined the associations between the “big-five” personality traits (i.e., extraversion, conscientiousness, openness, stability and agreeableness) and days lost due to illness or health problems using data from the World Bank’s Skills toward Employment and Productivity survey on Ghana. Based on the distribution of the dependent variable (days lost due to illness), a standard binary logistic regression technique was employed. In addition, to check the robustness of our results, the negative binomial and ordinary least squares regression techniques were used. The findings showed that females are more likely to report days lost due to illness than males. Consistent with existing literature, stability was found to be inversely associated with number of days lost due to illness. Additionally, openness was found to be inversely related to the number of days lost due to illness suggesting that individuals who are more curious, novel, cultivated, aesthetic, sensitive, independent minded, intellectual and creative are less likely to report days lost due to illness. These findings add to the growing evidence that personality traits are associated with life outcomes and can be used to predict self-reported health outcomes.Item Union wage effect: Evidence from Ghana(Cogent Economics & Finance, 2023) Owusu-Afriyie, J.; Baffour, P.T.; Baah-Boateng, W.Consistent with Convention 87 of the International Labour Organization (ILO), Section 79 of the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651) empowers every employee in an organization to either form or join a trade union of their choice for the promotion and protection of their economic and social interests. In spite of this legal provision, union coverage and density in Ghana have continually declined in recent years. The decline in union density and coverage is likely to decrease the collective bargaining strength of unions. It is against this back ground that our study seeks to examine the effect of unions’ bargaining (proxied by union presence variable) on wages in Ghana. We employ the Heckman Selection Model and quantile regression technique to analyze data extracted from the sixth round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 6) and 2015 Ghana Labour Force Survey (GLFS 2015) respectively. The findings indicate that unions’ bargaining effect on wages is positive. Furthermore, the study finds that the union wage premium is highest at the lowest point of the wage distribution (25th quantile) but lowest at the highest point of the wage distribution (75th quantile). Whilst the study acknowledges the importance of education in earn ings determination, we recommend that low-wage employees in a non-union establishment should join a trade union in order to earn a living/decent wage