ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to investigate how COVID-19 pandemic including some coping strategies such as hand wash with soap and food consumption influences work operation or performance of nonfarm household enterprises (NHEs) in Nigeria using 2020 Living Standard Measurement Survey data of 1728 sample size. This study departs from existing study in two ways: first, the study employs multinomial logistic regression technique to ascertain the determinants of work performance of nonfarm household enterprises in Nigeria. Second, the study focuses on nonfarm enterprises such as petty trade, road side automobile and cab drivers. The results show that COVID-19 pandemic is significant with negative influence on the work operation of NHEs in Nigeria. The result of the study also reveals that coping strategy such as hand wash with soap during the pandemic is an important driver of work performance or operation of NHEs in Nigeria. Another coping strategy like food consumption by nonfarm household enterprises shows insignificant influence on work operation which implies that there is no relationship between food consumption and work operation by NHEs in Nigeria. The policy recommendation of this study, among others, is that policies should focus on procurement of sanitary material for public use. This can be achieved through public sensitisation in terms of organising workshops and conferences.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to investigate how COVID-19 pandemic including some coping strategies such as hand wash with soap and food consumption influences work operation or performance of nonfarm household enterprises (NHEs) in Nigeria using 2020 Living Standard Measurement Survey data of 1728 sample size. This study departs from existing study in two ways: first, the study employs multinomial logistic regression technique to ascertain the determinants of work performance of nonfarm household enterprises in Nigeria. Second, the study focuses on nonfarm enterprises such as petty trade, road side automobile and cab drivers. The results show that COVID-19 pandemic is significant with negative influence on the work operation of NHEs in Nigeria. The result of the study also reveals that coping strategy such as hand wash with soap during the pandemic is an important driver of work performance or operation of NHEs in Nigeria. Another coping strategy like food consumption by nonfarm household enterprises shows insignificant influence on work operation which implies that there is no relationship between food consumption and work operation by NHEs in Nigeria. The policy recommendation of this study, among others, is that policies should focus on procurement of sanitary material for public use. This can be achieved through public sensitisation in terms of organising workshops and conferences.
ABSTRACT
Following the paucity of empirical studies on the effects of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on global retail energy markets and the need to reassess the markets for the prevalence of rockets and feathers effect and rent-seeking behavior by retailers during the Covid-19 pandemic, we studied the asymmetric response of the markets to changes in EPU and crude oil costs. We estimated nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag models over the period 2004 M11-2020 M6 using data for global and domestic EPUs as well as gasoline, automotive diesel, domestic heating oil, industrial fuel oil and crude oil markets. We find that rising uncertainty significantly increases retail energy prices both in the short-run and long-run, especially in UK, Japan and Europe. The asymmetric patterns show that many of the markets respond more to rising uncertainty than declining uncertainty, suggesting the prevalence of the "fear of the unknown”. Our results also showed significant evidence of rockets and feathers effect in all the countries, except Canada. Furthermore, the likelihood of rent-seeking by retailers was observed in the diesel and domestic heating oil markets in Italy, UK, and France. The study concluded that these findings have important policy implications, particularly as they relate to consumer welfare, antitrust policies and stability of the policy environment.