Energy use and the role of per capita income on carbon emissions in African countries.

This study contributes towards the realization of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 which aims "take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts" by investigating the role of per capita income in moderating the impact of energy use on carbon emissions. Using data from 28 selected African countries covering 1990 to 2019 and deploying the FGLS, PCSE, and MM-QR techniques, findings reveal, among others, that: at the 1% significance level, a percentage change in energy use leads to between 0.60% and 0.70% increase in carbon emissions, on average, ceteris paribus. Correspondingly, income shows to be a positive driver of emissions contributing between 0.87% and 0.84% percentage increase, on average, ceteris paribus. Also, per capita income attenuates the impact of energy use on emissions by between -0.27% and -0.23%, on average, ceteris paribus. However, significant heterogeneities occur across the sub-regions. Specifically, Southern Africa shows the largest energy contributor to emissions 1.65% while Central Africa contributes the most to aggravating emissions by 1.87% through increase in per capita income. West Africa shows the largest moderation effect at -0.56%. Across the quartiles, the effects of energy use and per capita are positive. Given these, we submit that the strong correlation between energy usage and per capita income (i.e. economic growth) poses a dilemma for African economies in their drive for growth. Leaving room for trade-offs. Perhaps, the lesson is that as African countries seek for more development without contributing to carbon emissions, governments should invest more in renewable energy.

Estimation of Isentropic Compressibility of Biodiesel Using ELM Strategy: Application in Biofuel Production Processes.

Isentropic compressibility is one of the significant properties of biofuel. On the other hand, the complexity related to the experimental procedure makes the detection process of this parameter time-consuming and hard. Thus, we propose a new Machine Learning (ML) method based on Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) to model this important value. A real database containing 483 actual datasets is compared with the outputs predicted by the ELM model. The results of this comparison show that this ML method, with a mean relative error of 0.19 and R 2 values of 1, has a great performance in calculations related to the biodiesel field. In addition, sensitivity analysis exhibits that the most efficient parameter of input variables is the normal melting point to determine isentropic compressibility.

Regional economic integration and economic upgrading in global value chains: selected cases in Africa.

This study examined the impact of regional economic integration on economic upgrading in global value chains (GVCs), of the East African Community (EAC), Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), from 2000 to 2015. Using the Least Square Dummy Variable (LSDV) technique, the results showed that regional economic integration is not a significant driver of the economic upgrading of their Members, in GVCs but one-period lagged backward participation in GVCs is. Considering labour productivity as an alternative measure of productivity in the place of productivity linked with participation in GVCs (economic upgrading), regional economic integration turned out to be a weak positively significant determinant. At a disaggregated level, regional economic integration significantly determined labour productivity in both EAC and SACU but not in ECOWAS. More regional efforts are needed to sufficiently aid the contribution of these African RECs to their Members' economic upgrading in GVCs.

Wagner proposition in Nigeria: An econometric analysis.

Succinct exploration of Adolph Wagner's Proposition [WP] 1883 - Peacock and Wiseman 1961version was put to the validation test in the study. At least, this time, for a quinaquina octo annis period, representing the life span of Nigeria. Specific suspicion of shocks from data from the world indicator and monetary authority necessitated the adoption of the ADF test with structural breaks, which came out positive at alternating integrating order. This propelled the Autoregressive Distributed Lag ARDL model path having specified the lag selection automatically. Even though the series showed significant association in the short run, and bi-directional causality, the result of the Bound test - F-statistics (calculated) = 3.42 falls below upper Bound I(0) = 4.68 and lower bound I(1) = 5.15 hence, invalidates the WP position in the long - run in Nigeria. This is an indication that a reduction in non-economically viable and overlapping, funds-straining ministries/departments/agencies (MDA) is indispensable.