International Journal of Economics & Management Sciences

Evidence abound that some transition and developing countries are attracting large inflows of foreign capital that could engender economic growth or have destabilizing effect on their economies if not well managed. This has undoubtedly aroused anxiety over its potential effects on economic growth, the competitiveness of the export and external sectors viability. The study examines the impact of capital flows (foreign direct investment), exchange rate, export and trade openness on economic growth in Nigeria as well as the causal long-run relationship among the variables, using time series data from 1970 – 2010. The unit root test confirmed the series to be stationary at I(1), while the Johansen cointegration test suggested the existence of at least one cointegration vector among the variables. Using Engle-Granger 2-Step procedure, it was observed that all the variables, except the fdi are statistically significant and impact on economic growth in the short-run dynamic equilibrium model. Exogeneity test confirmed that fdi has weak exogeneity with economic growth. In addition, the Pairwise Granger causality revealed the existence of uni-directional causality between economic growth and fdi, and uni-directional and bi-directional causality among some of the variables. Consequently, it is recommended that government should continue to pursue trade and foreign exchange policies that would ensure competitiveness and viability of the export sector as well as economic growth, while foreign direct investment should be encouraged amidst thriving business environment that would engender economic growth.

This article try to detect and analyze the interaction of attractiveness of FDI and the role of ICTs, specifically telecommunications as a key factor in increasing FDI flows. The theoretical approach, a particular interest in the theory of knowledge economy and the theory of New Institutional Economics, and to detect factors attractivités FDI and the mechanisms through which ICT will attract more foreign investors. The method used is an OLS estimation. In our study, we will discuss the relevance of such expectations for the MENA region. we will identify and analyze the interaction of attractiveness for FDI and the role of ICT, Telecommunications precisely, as a factor in the increase in FDI flows. In addition, our work is of particular interest to the economic theory of knowledge and the theory of New Institutional Economics, and to detect factors attractivities FDI and the mechanisms through which ICT will attract more foreign investors.

Creating consumer value in higher education through marketing techniques employed exploratory research design method to demonstrate and showcase the importance and pervasiveness of marketing in all sphere of life. The study examined consumer’s perception of price, quality and value in higher education using marketing concepts, theories, models and approaches. The study conceptualized higher education as a market entity, identified the publics (consumers) of higher education and applied exchange theories to show how they interact. A Means End Model that relates price, quality and value was adopted to clarify consumers’ expectations in higher education. It is evident from the study that the same expectations, desires and needs consumers have for manufactured goods that they equally have for higher educational services (knowledge). Again, the study revealed that application of marketing techniques in higher education value creation and delivery will contribute significantly in making the higher education products (graduates) internationally acceptable and globally competitive.

This paper explores the sustainability of the current account in Kenya. While the country has experienced large deficits for a number of years in the past, it’s recent downward trend and the realization of its pivotal role in Kenya’s development agenda raises concern. It employs the intertemporal approach based on pure time series data between the years 1975 and 2010. The results failed to support the existence of a long-run equilibrium between exports and imports in Kenya. This puts to question the effectiveness of Kenya’s current long-term macroeconomic policies and suggests that Kenya is in violation of its intertemporal budget constraint. These results also point to the possibility of a crisis, given the usefulness of the current account in predicting a crisis.

The study aims at investigating the efficiency of public hospitals that have been reformed to operate under private sector management of through the full operating system in KSA. The study applied Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) on the sample of reformed hospitals based on the ministry of health data for 2011. The study found that although the Saudi government achieved many positives results such as: attracting the excellence human resources, rising of the level of government health services, attracting national capital to the health sector, and reducing the administrative burden of the government sector, there are (60%) of the study sample had not achieved relative efficiency due to different reasons. The study concludes that health reform is complex, and requires policy consistency, stability, and government institutions with strong implementation capacity and government credibility. Public hospitals reform requires close coordination between policy design and implementation, and a matching of the scale and pace of reform to the capacity for implementation. Over time, through iterative evaluation, policy review and adjustment, KSA can identify what works best, and move to more consistent policies, standards of service delivery, and equity of access across its hospital system.

The aim of this study was to find the number of organizations using human resource information system (HRIS) and its impact on process improvement of human resource management activities in organizations operating in India. In this survey, a total of 71 companies across India were shortlisted from six different sectors namely information technology, real estate, business process outsourcing, financial services, manpower consulting and travel & tourism. The sample size of 385 respondents was decided, but only 355 questionnaires were found to be usable and were thus analyzed, which is a response rate of 96.25%. Chi-square results showed that organizations in the real estate sector and the service sector of India, differed significantly on using human resource information system (HRIS). This study also provided concrete insight about human resource professionals, view on process improvement of human resource management by human resource information system (HRIS).

This paper aimed at establishing effects of regional financial integration on economic growth in East African Community (EAC). Conflicting views on the effects of financial integration on economic growth prompted the study. Quantitative and qualitative data between year 2000 and 2009 from the East African community was used. This paper employed the general method of moments in its analysis. Results showed that regional financial integration significantly stimulated economic growth of the EAC. The study recommends that EAC coordinating committee promote effective bank supervision to achieve uniform bank spread, initiate ways of issuance of common bond and develop secondary markets for all financial assets in the region.

The new institutional economics or economic comparisons (Djankov and Shleifer, 2003) was one of the liveliest areas of political economy over the last decade. Moreover, the recent development of the telecommunications industry that form the "information structure" has strengthened economic activity through improved information technology. Technologies of information and communication (ICT) have significantly transformed the international trade. This paper aims to study the impact of these inputs on manufacturing exports, for this will be discussed in the first determinants of exportations. In the second place we detect the potential impact of telecommunications, institutional quality and the contribution of FDI on the promotion and diversification of exports in the MENA Zone application via panel data and those 5 groups of products manufacturers.

This paper explores existing models of mobile money services currently experimented around the world including Nigeria: The operator-centric model, the bank-centric model, the collaborative-model, the bank-lead model, the bank-focused model and the non-bank-led model. We find that these models have their full advantages and limits. Following an extensive study of each of the models vis-à-vis their adaptabilities, this study recommends a particular model for the Nigerian economy.