Sunday, January 26, 2020

Impact of foreign aid on the economic growth of Nigeria

Impact of foreign aid on the economic growth of Nigeria Foreign aid can be simply put to be a flow of assistance which can take the form of funds, infrastructure, trade openness from high income countries to low income countries. The debate till date has been centred around the significance of this aid on the economic growth of these countries. To a large extent, several researches have shown a positive impact of foreign aid on the economic growth of LDCs with the exception of a few factors which may affect this positive impact on growth, while some others have shown a negative impact on economic growth of these LDCs. According to Burnside and Dollar (1997), the positive impact of foreign aid on growth in LDCs is subject to the country having good fiscal, monetary and trade policies, thus, the introduction of economic policies into their economic equation. This was included, to see if aid was allocated to these countries in favour of good policies. Durbarry et al (1998) argue that an important limitation of much of this literature is the incompleteness of the underlying growth models, according to them, irrespective of the fact that Burnside and Dollar were among the first to take into account economic policies, they have not been able to examine the impact of aid in general including only aggregate savings and investment variables. Most of these researches have based the framework of their research on the neoclassical growth model such as the Solow growth model and the Ramsey-cass-koopmans growth model which suggests that poor countries should have a high return to capital and a fast growth rate in transition to the steady state ( Burnside and Dollar, 1997). According to Chenery and Strout (1966), in the case of a country seeking a transformation of its existing economy and hoping not to rely on more advanced countries (i.e. foreign aid), such a country must be able to meet the necessary demands for her rapid growth from either her own resources or from her net exports. The case of foreign aid and economic growth has proven to be a continuous learning process, in that, while some studies base their findings on macroeconomic factors such as economic policies, others have recommended the use of human well being factors such as infant mortality, literacy, life expectancy and employment level ( Burnside and Dollar 1997; Fayissa and El-Kaissy 1999). While the results of Durbarry et al (1998) supports the results of Burnside and Dollar (1997) which shows foreign aid to have a positive impact on growth where there is a good macroeconomic policy environment, but with some exceptions which were based on income level, levels of aid allocation and geographical location. According to him, aid has been tested econometrically based on a macro and micro level, the results of some these tests by some researchers show that aid works at the micro level while at the macro level the results as ambiguous ( Durbarry et al, 1998). So far, most research have dwelt on macroeconomic factors as well as physical factors which in their opinions either shows that growth is fostered positively by aid or negatively by aid. One interesting contribution to the subject matter in question is the contribution by Douglas C. Dacy, which looked at foreign aid and economic growth from a totally different point of view, his paper aimed showing the possibility of an aid receiving country having its post-aid growth rate to be lower than it would have been in a situation of not receiving aid under certain conditions. According to Dacy (1975), his paper viewed the subject of foreign aid and economic growth with respect to consumption on the side of the government as well as domestic savings. Contrary to other researches, Dacy in his paper viewed foreign aid as a substitute for domestic savings, saying that there would not be an increase in total savings by the full amount of foreign savings. Thus, LDCs will increase consumption as well as investment if foreign aid is made available. Papanek (1973) in his paper, studied the relationship between aid, savings, foreign investment and growth in thirty-four LDCs for the 1950s and fifty-one LDCs for the 1960s, applying cross-country regression analysis. Treating each of these components as separate explanatory variables, he found out that over a third of GDP growth is explained b y domestic savings and foreign inflows. Also the effect foreign aid has relative to other variables is considerably higher, his results also suggests no inverse relationship between aid and foreign private investment as well as showing a non-correlation between growth and factors such as; exports, education, country size or per capita income. Unlike Chenery and Strouts result which showed that Countrys size and per capita income has a positive relationship with growth, Papaneks result did not show such positive relationship as said earlier. This is because Papaneks work had savings as one of the independent variables and this was seen to be si gnificantly correlated with per capita income. Concluding his paper, Papanek (1973), suggests from his results that foreign aid is distributed disproportionately to LDCs experiencing low savings rates as well as severe balance of payments problems. And that this disproportionate aid has a more positive effect on growth than domestic savings and other sources of foreign inflows. Chenery and Strouts results are criticised by Papanek as not being very stable and also in his results, foreign source of inflows are not disaggregated compared to the results of Papanek. Papanek (1973) and Burnside Dollar (2000) share similar opinions on the allocation of foreign aid to low income countries. As Papanek is of the view that foreign aid is disproportionately distributed to low income countries who are experiencing low savings rate. While Burnside and Dollar is of the view that though this is allocated to low income countries, it is also influenced by population, i.e. aid donors tend to allocate more aid to smaller countries in size within the Low Income Countries, and also there are variables that reflect their own strategies. Generally speaking, from researches done so far, it is evident that foreign aid has a positive relationship (or impact) on economic growth in LDCs. But this could show a different result when the countries are sampled individually, such that, though aid may be positively related to economic growth based on some macroeconomic factors, it may also a negative relationship influenced by some other factors. According to Levy (1988), his paper aimed at showing some level of quantitative evidence on the impact of foreign aid on economic growth. This he showed using a sample of 22 Low Income Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with the exception of a few African countries which to him had their level of development similar to that of middle income countries. Using time series data for his analysis, Levy found two important things; which is a positively significant relationship between aid, investment and economic growth in Africa. The second important finding is that there is a significant contribution by fixed capital formation to the rate of economic growth. Although the exclusion of some African countries which he classified as similar to middle income countries from his analysis seems questionable, Levys contribution to the subject matter is very significant. According to Burnside and Dollar (1997), most researches such as that of Levy (1988) and a few others who made an attempt to measure the impact of aid on domestic savings, investment and growth in developing countries, have had results which faced several econometric difficulties. Taking another close look at the work of Dacy (1975) which questioned the desirability of aid, according to him, even if aid is used in a way that contributes to a decline in the long term growth rate, it will almost always be true that the capital stock income and consumption will be higher at the end of the period of aid, and for a number of years afterward, than it would have been without aid. To this end he agrees with Papanek (1973) view which argues that the inverse relationship shown in most statistical research between domestic savings and foreign aid might be greatly misleading. This view is due to Papaneks objections from his observations from previous studies, thus, Papaneks results which show that there is a positive relationship between aid and economic growth as well as aid having an inverse relationship with domestic savings is largely accepted by Dacy. Durbarry et al (1998) in their paper made reference to the work of Hadjimicheal et al (1995) as being a more advanced piece of research compared to most of the researches before it. This is because of their effort to show the potential secondary effect of foreign aid such as the Dutch Disease as well as other policy related variables that are speculated to have an effect on growth. Ekanayake and chatrna (2010) in their paper, criticised the work of Karras (2006) which concluded that there is a positive statistically significant and permanent impact of foreign aid on economic growth. In which they gave a statistical analysis by per person result as well as the growth rate of real GDP per capita, but in all this, they did not take into consideration the effect of policies. According to the research carried out by Ekanayake and Chatrna (2010), their results showed mixed effects of foreign aid on economic growth in LDCs, their research was carried out using annual data on a group of 85 developing countries cutting across continents. The models that were specified in their work were estimated using panel least squares estimation method. Malik (2008) described the poverty of people in the poorest African Countries to be on the increase despite the many years of development assistance. According to him, there has remained a stagnant or declining real per capita income since the 1960s, thus the disturbing question is why could these countries not break the poverty trap despite receiving large inflows of foreign aid?. This question he sought to answer using the co-integration analysis for six poorest African Countries, the results from this analysis showed the existence of a long run relationship between real GDP, aid and investment as a percentage of GP and trade openness. But showing the effect of foreign aid on growth, the result indicated a long run negative relationship for most of these countries. Easterly (2003) went ahead in his paper to discuss the historical research on the relationship between foreign aid and Economic growth. This he did, citing the work of Burnside and Dollar as being an early research that was widely accepted by the World Bank and economies of the world, and thus, created the platform for further research. According to Easterly (2003), data availability was one of the main limitations to having a conclusive and reasonable literature on the subject matter i.e. foreign aid and economic growth in the 1960s and onwards, as well as the reasonable arguments on the specific factors and ways through which foreign aid can affect growth. In his paper, Easterly (2003) cited the paper by Boone (1996) as being noted for its aim to address the issues of reverse causality through the introduction of political factors that determine aid, and thus, using them as instruments in addressing these problems. He also discussed the paper by Burnside and Dollar (2000) as being well known for addressing the disbelief shown by Boone and also the lack of agreement from previous studies. In another paper by Papanek (1972) titled The Effect of Aid and other Resource Transfers on Savings and Growth in Less Developed Countries, he analysed the recent challenge to past assumptions with respect to aid, savings and growth, where he termed some past literatures as Revisionists. His concern is based on their argument that the contribution to economic growth by foreign aid is little or insignificant, in which a number of factors were taken into consideration to support this claim. He went further to expand their argument saying Aid may ease the lot of the recipient countrys citizens by permitting higher consumption which is considered desirable if the analysts humanitarian instincts outweigh his Calvinist conviction that people should struggle for their economic salvation, but does little for growth (Papanek, 1972). Amongst these, are other literatures done by several researchers in which different methods were implemented such as the Autoregressive Distributed lag (ARDL) model used by Gounder (2001), in which his results showed a positive relationship between foreign aid and economic growth in Fiji. There has been other literatures that have also tried to show this relationship in individual countries, some have found a positive relationship but a long- run negative relationship using the Co-integration and error correction analysis, while others found a co-integration between saving rate, real gross domestic product and aid therefore showing a long-run positive effects (Murty et al, 1994; Nyoni, 1998). Taking a closer look at the problem of causality which Boone tried to address, Dacy (1975) concurs that the issue of causality is a tough knot to tie. He also suggests that the debate on if foreign aid contributes largely to economic growth is one that cannot be fully decided, as there would be a need to take into consideration the response of individuals as well as groups. Such consideration includes checking if these individuals or groups behave in a certain way where there is an increase in aid compared to where there is no aid. From the above literatures and many more, it is obvious that the issue of foreign aid and its impact on economic growth is inconclusive and is also a continuous learning process. Depending on the different types of data and methodology used in previous studies, several results have been achieved; some depict positive and significant relationship while others indicate negative long-run relationships based on different factors. This paper in the next section would be using time series data and applying the Ordinary Least Squares method (OLS) as well as the co-integration method to see what impact foreign aid has on the economic growth of Nigeria. Section 3. Data and Methodology In testing for the impact of foreign aid on the economic growth of Nigeria, I am using annual time series data which has its period from 1960 2009 and which is gotten from World Bank World Development Indicators. Thus, the focus of this analysis is on Nigeria as a developing country and a recipient of aid from advanced countries which are known as donors. Due to the limited availability of data with respect to the proposed variables, the observations are 49 running from 1960-2009. The table below shows the variables that are included in this study as well as the source they were gotten from: Table 1: Variable Unit source Gross Domestic product Growth Rate World Bank Foreign Direct Investment Percentage of GDP World Bank Trade(Openness; exports plus imports as a percentage of GDP Percentage of GDP World Bank Population Growth Per Cent (%) World Bank Net ODA per capita Current US$ World Bank Most of my variables were gotten from the work of Ekanayake and Chatrna (2010), where he used things like investment as proxy for growth rate of capital stock and also population growth as proxy for labour force. This study also uses population growth as a proxy for labour force as well as including trade to represent openness which as shown in the table above is made up of exports plus imports as a percentage of GDP. Net ODA per capita is a proxy for aid alongside Foreign Direct Investment, as earlier said, this study would be adopting the use of Ordinary Least Squares method (OLS) for its analysis. To ensure that the study is academically robust, I will also be employing the use of co-integration tests, to check the long run relationship between Foreign aid and Economic growth in Nigeria.

Friday, January 17, 2020

Background check of hiring employee Essay

In nowadays, background check of hiring employee is practicing by almost all agencies. Point is that, the skills of the applicant can be, somehow, figured out. It is much more difficult to assess the level of trust, honesty, mental toughness, and loyalty. Reading through chapter 9, and conducting a slight research, my answers to the questions of the given scenario are as follows: 1.Do temporary agencies have a â€Å"duty† to run background checks? If so, did Robert half â€Å"breach that duty?† Why or Why not? According to the law of negligence, temporary agencies should follow the duty policy on background check on pre-employment, in order not to satisfy an element of negligence. In case of Robert Half International Inc., and Fox Associates, Inc., I don’t think, that duty was breached, the company trusted to provided information by Ms. Ross about herself, and she got good recommendations from her former employers. At some extend, it is a background check. 2.The court ruled against Fox Associates. Was the court correct? Do you think Fox should have done its own background check? Why or Why not? I agree with the court decision, that it was determined that duty is not breached, because it happened unknowingly. Even though the company recommended the employee, Fox could do its own background check as well. 3.The fact pattern mentions that Sunbeam suffered similar damages when it failed to do its own background check on Mr. Dunlap, its former CEO. Who was more at fault, Sunbeam or the Executive search agency? In this case, the fault has an Executive search agency more, than Sunbeam, as it its straight duty to check background before approve for hiring. However, Sunbeam is liable for its losses also, because it should request and check the information about hiring employer. 4.Strategically and legally speaking, why do you think the former employers said nothing about Ms. Ross’ history and gave her good recommendations? There could be some reasons: 1). the former employers might feel sympathetic towards Ms. Ross, and they don’t believe that she has stolen any funds; 2) Ms. Ross, indeed a good specialist in her field; and the last 3) The former employers just didn’t tell the truth. 5.Develop one  unique background check policies for your company on employees hired through a search firm or temp agency. The main idea on background check which I’d like to develop, besides gathering information, confirmation of address, criminal records searches, is that pre-employee will answer some â€Å"simple† questions, which will ask him/her the same, but in different manner, and maybe I would add some psychological tests, which will let me know if that employee was capable to do something unethical in his past work experience.

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Analysis Of The Titular Character, Dorian Gray - 837 Words

This year, TJ’s One Question was as follows: â€Å"How can we strive to discover and pursue our own passions despite societal norms and external pressures that would compromise our aspirations and dissuade us from pursuing them?† Well, if one listens to The Picture of Dorian Gray, the answer is to do the opposite of what the titular character, Dorian Gray, does, which is ignore societal norms and live a life as a work of art, free of pesky morals and humanity. Dorian starts out as a young and innocent teenager who is influenced by the people and society around him. The book focuses on eternal beauty as a goal. Lord Henry is obsessed with such glamor and when the two meet, Lord Henry s obsession rubs off on Dorian. From then on, Dorian s life is dictated exclusively by Lord Henry s interests. His life ends in failure and the book implies that ignoring influences and focusing on self-development is a better way of achieving one s aspirations in life. At the start of the novel, Dorian Gray is a handsome, vain, young, and innocent man but he grows into an ageless debauched sensualist. In the novel, almost every character has a passion for beauty, a passion that is frequently borderline obsessive, and shows a disregard for the consequences of living such lives. Basil is devoted to Dorian because of his looks and Basil s fascination with Dorian creates the portrait which becomes evil. Lord Henry refuses to believe that Dorian could do anything bad because of his exquisiteness

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

The Effects Of Physical Development On Child Development

During childrenà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬TMs development from birth to 19 years old they will be following the sequence of development which will be in the same ways for each child as they have to learn one skill before they can learn the next one but each child will progress at a different rate of development. Each children with develop with in four areas which are Physical development, language development, social and emotional development and then intellectual development. Physical development The physical development is the one that children will develop quicker in than any over development area. This will start with a few weeks of a baby being born as a baby will start to smile and respond to familiar sounds and their surroundings. By the time a baby is 6†¦show more content†¦Between 2-3 years old Marks on paper will now be forming into scribbles as they begin to use pencils. Balls will be starting to be kicked and thrown. Brick towers will be getting larger than the ones they were building; also they will start to experiment with liquids in play by pouring. At 3 years Children start to become more independent. Their moving and climbing skills will be coming stronger as they start to run, jump, catch, walk up and down stairs etc. They will start to try and dress and undress themselves but may need some assistance. At 4 years boys motor skills are more developed in areas such as throwing and aiming, building, climbing, pedalling, etc. Whereas a girls are more develop within the finer motor skills such as the use of scissors, holding a pencil to draw and colour and also when threading small beads or sewing stitches. At 5 years Children with have more pencil control and will begin to copy letters and shapes and start to draw people. Ball games will develop with more structure as they begin to kick with an aim. They will begin to learn to hop on one foot, then the other also to skip. At 6 years dressing becomes independent as they learn to do buttons, laces, etc. writing becomes more fluent as copying letter shapes has progressed to words and sentences with greater pencil control. A childà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬TMs confidence would have increased when playing outside in climbing, jumping from heights and riding a bike.Show MoreRelatedSocial Isolation, Neglect And Child Development964 Words   |  4 PagesSocial Isolation, Neglect and Child Development Social isolation is defined by Nicholson (2009) as a state in which the individual lacks a sense of belonging socially, lacks engagement and social contact with others and is unable to form quality relationships (as cited in Nicholson, 2012). Social isolation and neglect can have detrimental effects on a child’s overall physical, cognitive and emotional development. According to Kendall, Murray and Linden (2007), the initial love and nurturance weRead More2.1 Describe with Examples the Kinds of Influences That Affect Children and Young People‚Äà ´s Development Including; Background, Health and Environment803 Words   |  4 PagesA child development is influenced in many ways such as their background, health and environment. These factors will have an impact on the child’s different areas of development. Background Children come from all different family environments, cultures and circumstances. Children go through significant family changes such as a family break-up or a new step-family. These can affect a child’s emotional and intellectual development. A child may also change their behaviour, which means there abilityRead MoreIs Entertainment Technology Beneficial?902 Words   |  4 Pagesso has a negative side effect to the conveniences of it. These negative outcomes have disrupted the agenda for youth as well as children and infants. â€Å"It takes two full years for a baby s brain to develop to the point where the symbols on the screen come to represent their equivalents in the real world† (Healthy Children). Exposure to entertainment technology from the age’s birth to two years of age has negative effects. These effects include delayed cognitive development, language, social emotionalRead MoreThe Effects Of A Family System During Development945 Words   |  4 Pages The positive effects of a family system during development versus the adverse effects of not having a family system during development. Mary Bowen developed the Family Systems Theory, which is based on the premise that inter-and intra-relational patterns are transmitted from one generation to the next (Martin, 2014). Bowen believes that the goal of achieving positive well-being is to find the balance between achieving personal autonomy and individuation while maintaining appropriate closeness withRead MoreWhy Father Is Important?1587 Words   |  7 Pagesyour father? If not, what if you did? How did it make you feel? What was the importance of your father’s presence and involvement in your life? As these are questions I’ve examined to see if a father’s presence and involvement are important to development. The father role present-day is continually diminishing from the values that constitute a traditional family. Non- traditional and single parent family structures are a growing phenomenon. According to U.S. Census Bureau, over 77% of children inRead MoreExplain the Reasons Why Children and Youn g Peoples Development May Not Follow the Expected Pattern697 Words   |  3 PagesUNDERSTAND CHILD AND YOUNG PERSONS DEVELOPMENT Unit 022 Outcome 3 Understand how to monitor children and young people’s development and interventions that should take place if this is not following the expected pattern 2 Explain the reasons why children and young people’s development may not follow the expected pattern There are many reasons and factors why a child is not following the expected pattern of development. For example the child may be emotionally unsettled due to a number ofRead MoreA Brief Note On Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Health1590 Words   |  7 PagesAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience social disadvantages which significantly impacts their physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual and social health. This essay analyses the impacts of the social determinants of health such as socioeconomic status, early life and psychological distress to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health which causes the wide gap in the social disadvantages experienced by the Indigenous community. According to the assessment of a ProductivityRead MoreEarly Childhood : Childhood Development1494 Words   |  6 Pageschildhood development Early childhood is the the time period when a child opens his eyes in the world and it continues upto the age of 8 years old (Masten et al. â€Å"NAME OF ARTICLE†)This is really the time in which the brain of the child starts growing and basis for the subsequences of development. Early childhood period starts at home the very first stages of life. Parents have a great role in childhood development. Then the second factor or place which has great effects on childhood development is theRead MoreDescribe That Possible Signs, Symptoms, Indicators and Behaviours That May Cause Concern in the Context of Safeguarding.1486 Words   |  6 PagesDEFINITION OF CHILD ABUSE An abused child is any child, up to the age of 18, who has suffered from, or is believed likely to be at risk of, physical injury, neglect, emotional abuse, sexual abuse or verbal abuse. (Source: www.yesican.org) It is recognised that that it is abuse when someone inflicts harm or fails to prevent it. Children may be abused in a family or in an institutional or community setting, by those known to them or by a stranger, for example, via the internet. Child abuse can haveRead MoreEssay on Factors that Influence Development in Children1081 Words   |  5 PagesCHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE’S DEVELOPMENT AND HOW THESE AFFECT PRACTICE There are various personal factors which can affect the development of children and young people. When a child is conceived, their genetics are formed. It is becoming increasingly apparent that as well as deciding, hair colour our genetics can influence addiction, depression and self-esteem issues. A baby’s development can also be affected during pregnancy. A mother’s lifestyle can also have an effect. Smoking, consumption of