Browsing by Author "Iddrisu, A.M."
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Item Access to mobile phones and the wellbeing of non-farm enterprise households: Evidence from Ghana(Technology in Society, 2018-08) Danquah, M.; Iddrisu, A.M.In this paper, we use the sixth round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 6) and robust methods to examine the access to mobile phones and wellbeing of non-farm enterprise households in Ghana. The findings of the study show that having access to a mobile phone improves the chances of being non-poor. With regards to the transmission channel, the results show that access to mobile phones is positive and significantly related with the revenues of nonfarm enterprises, suggesting that having mobile phones may expedite the business activities of nonfarm enterprises and thus leads to higher sales revenues. Finally, the locality disaggregated estimations of the effect of access to mobile phones on non-farm household wellbeing indicate that the significant positive effect of access to mobile phones on household wellbeing seems to be the case only among rural nonfarm enterprise households with urban nonfarm enterprise households' wellbeing not reliant on their access to mobile phones. However, having access to mobile phones improves the sales revenue of nonfarm enterprises in both rural and urban areas.Item Analysis of School Enrollment in Ghana: A Sequential Approach(2017) Iddrisu, A.M.; Danquah, M.; Quartey, P.n this paper, we depart from the standard way of analyzing school enrollment by accounting explicitlyfor educational selectivity in order to examine the determinants of child school enrollment in Ghana.Using data from the Ghana Living Standard Survey round 6 (GLSS 6), we estimate a three-stepsequential logit model for the determinants of secondary school enrollment and its dependence oncompleting primary school. We find that family resources such as parental education, household incomeand the gender of the head of the household play a role in households’ child schooling decisions.Educated parents are relatively more likely to enroll their children in primary school and keep them inschool until they complete primary education. As well, we show that educated parents do not promote agender-biased investment in the schooling of children at the primary level. While household welfare doesnot influence children’s entry into primary school importantly, their completion of primary schooldepends on household welfare. The study sheds more light on the pro-male bias phenomenon regardingentry into primary school and primary school completion. Policies to promote the achievement ofSustainable Development Goal 4 in Ghana must be grade sensitive.Item Financing the growth of SMEs in Africa: What are the contraints to SME financing within ECOWAS?(Review of Development Finance, 2017) Quartey, P.; Turkson, E.; Abor, J.Y.; Iddrisu, A.M.This study attempts to provide some understanding about SMEs’ access to finance within the West African sub-region with particular interest in establishing whether there are similarities and/or differences in the determinants of SMEs access to finance across countries in SSA. For robustness sake, we developed both subjective and objective measures of access to finance. Using data from World Bank's Enterprise Survey data set, we examine the determinants of access to finance both at the sub-regional level and at the country-level. We found that, generally, at the sub-regional level, access to finance is strongly determined by factors such as firm size, ownership, strength of legal rights, and depth of credit information, firm's export orientation and the experience of the top manager. However, we found important differences in the correlates of firms’ access to finance at the country level. The findings of this study therefore have important implications for policy. © 2017 Africagrowth InstituteItem Gender bias in households’ educational expenditures: Does the stage of schooling matter?(World Development Perspectives, 2018-06) Iddrisu, A.M.; Danquah, M.; Quartey, P.; Ohemeng, W.Gender gaps in educational outcomes still exist, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. This incidence could be attributed to an uneven allocation of household resources towards the schooling of boys and girls. Utilising the household level data from the latest wave of the Ghana Living Standards Survey, the paper sheds light on gender bias in households’ educational expenditures using a ‘Hurdle or Two-Part Model’ estimation strategy. The two-part model unpacks the key sources of gender bias in household’s expenditure allocations. A number of interesting findings emerge: The study established a significant pro-male bias in both the enrollment decision and the conditional expenditure decision among the cohort of individuals in the post-secondary schooling age while only the former source of bias is present in the senior-secondary schooling age cohort. Strikingly, however, no gender bias is found in the positive expenditure decision for boys and girls belonging to the basic education school-going age cohort, even though a pro-male bias operates in the conditional educational expenditure decision for children in the primary school-going age group. Contrary to earlier findings, we find a pro-female bias in a household’s decision of how much to spend conditional upon enrolling boys and girls for the cohort of children in the junior secondary schooling age. These findings have important implications for policy action.Item Paying for education among households in Ghana: Is there any role for household resources and contextual effects?(Emerald Publishing Limited, 2017-04) Danquah, M.; Iddrisu, A.M.; Quartey, P.Purpose Using data from the sixth round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey, this paper aims to take a critical look at issues relating to the demand for education in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach In doing this, the paper develops a model for the determinants of household’s educational expenditure using the full sample of data and an income-quintile disaggregated model of the determinants of household’s educational expenditures. The study adopts robust empirical estimation techniques to estimate the model. Findings The paper finds that household resources importantly influence children’s educational expenditures with wealthier households spending proportionately more in educating their children than poorer households; large-sized households spend more in terms of educational expenses than small-sized households reflecting largely the quantity of education purchased, given that quality and contextual factors matters for educational investments. Strikingly, the findings show that female headship is a significant positive predictor of households’ demand for education. These findings provide valuable policy options relating to the goal of ensuring inclusive and quality education for all and promoting a lifelong learning by 2030. Originality/value While literature on the determinants of households’ educational expenditures abound, very few of this literature focuses on sub-Saharan Africa. Consequently, this study makes an important contribution to the literature by providing evidence on the determinants of households’ educational expenditure in the context of sub-Saharan Africa.Item Unmasking the contributing factors of entrepreneurial activities among men and women in Ghana(Journal of Economic Studies, 2018-01) Quartey, P.; Danquah, M.; Owusu, G.; Iddrisu, A.M.Purpose Using the 2010 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey data, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the contributing factors of entrepreneurial propensity among males and females in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach Using a measure of entrepreneurial propensity that takes into account individuals who are involved in starting a new business (nascent entrepreneurs) as a dependent variable and socio-demographic characteristics, and perceptual variables as explanatory variables, the study adopts robust empirical estimation techniques to examine how these variables influence the probability of starting a new business among men and women in Ghana. Findings The probability of being a male nascent entrepreneur is significantly dependent upon a wide range of factors including demographic, economic, perceptual and contextual elements, albeit with important variations across gender. An individuals’ subjective assessment of fear of failure in starting a business and of having the requisite entrepreneurial capabilities; the age of the individual; gender of the individual; work status and contextual factors matters for entrepreneurial propensity in Ghana. However, important differences exist in the drivers of entrepreneurial propensity for males and females with females’ entrepreneurship attributed largely to conditions of necessity relative to their male counterparts. Originality/value The main value of this paper is to use the GEM survey (which is nationally representative) for Ghana to analyze the contributing factors of the entrepreneurial propensity among men and women in Ghana.