Jamilu Iliyasu

Purpose: This study aims to test whether U.S. defence fiscal spending and geopolitical escalation have been financialised through speculative price exuberance in major U.S. defence contractors' equity, and to assess whether episodes of stock exuberance align with periods of heightened defence spending and geopolitical tension. Design/methodology/approach: The study applied the Generalised Supremum Augmented Dickey–Fuller (GSADF) test to monthly stock-price series for five major U.S. defence contractors, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop, using data from 1970 to 01 to 2025–07. Identified and dated multiple exuberance episodes and compared their timing with records of major fiscal defence outlays, geopolitical tensions and military events. Findings: The findings reveal the detection of multiple distinct episodes of price exuberance across all five firms. Many exuberant episodes significantly coincided with periods of major U.S. defence fiscal spending, rising geopolitical tensions and notable military events. This evidence of synchronisation suggests that defence contractor valuations may have periodically exhibited speculative dynamics during phases of elevated defence spending and geopolitical tension. However, additional evidence also indicates that defence spending is more strongly associated with bubble activity than geopolitical risk itself. Originality/value: The study provides a long-span, firm-level empirical test of the financialisation of defence by combining GSADF bubble detection with a multi-decadal dataset through mid-2025 across five leading contractors. The study links dated exuberance episodes to fiscal and geopolitical events and offers a novel policy implication: financial regulators should incorporate defence-spending dynamics and geopolitical expectations into market surveillance.

In January 2024, Nigeria switched to inflation targeting with the policy rate reaching a historical high. However, inflation remained elevated, reflecting persistence, uncertainty, second‐round effects, and exchange rate depreciation. Thus, this study examines the implications of the interplay between inflation persistence, chaotic behaviour, and second‐round effects for the newly adopted inflation‐targeting regime. The study employs state‐space vector autoregressive models, entropy, and multifractal spectrum. First, the results show that inflation persistence is high and has been increasing since 2016. Second, findings reveal that periods of high inflation persistence coincide with substantial second‐round effects. Third, the analysis indicates that persistence is asymmetric across size and the inflation regimes. Finally, this study also observes complex chaotic behaviour and uncertainty in the inflation process. Overall, these findings suggest that the transition to inflation targeting may involve prolonged disinflation and substantial output costs if policy relies mainly on aggressive monetary tightening. Thus, the Central Bank should therefore monitor second‐round effects and treat the estimated threshold as an early‐warning indicator rather than an inflation target. Also, the bank may have to strengthen scenario‐based forecasting and coordinate monetary actions with fiscal and supply‐side measures addressing food, energy and exchange rate pressures.

Purpose: Drawing a distinction between central bank deeds (actual foreign exchange interventions) and words (official announcements and the governor's speeches), this paper examines the effects of the Central Bank of Nigeria's interventions, its official announcements, and the governor's speeches on the naira foreign exchange market. Design/methodology/approach: A causal impact intervention analysis is conducted using a Bayesian diffusion-regression state-space model using daily data from January 2023 to 9th August 2024. Counterfactual scenarios are generated to isolate and quantify the effects of actual interventions, public announcements, and speeches on the exchange rate. Findings: Direct foreign exchange interventions produce an insignificant and short-lived impact, causing initial depreciation of the naira within weeks, followed by a rebound. On the other hand, the bank's announcements and the governor's speeches trigger significant and persistent depreciation, with the market reacting more strongly and for longer to verbal signals than to direct interventions. Originality/value: The paper contributes to the literature on central bank communication and foreign exchange intervention by applying a Bayesian diffusion-regression state-space framework to jointly evaluate policy actions and verbal signals in an oil-exporting emerging economy, showing that communication can dominate intervention in shaping exchange rate expectations.

1. Traditionally, remittances have remained among the most important and stable sources of augmenting domestic savings to boost economic growth and sustain developmental paths. For example, it has ...

Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the implications of emerging barriers to women entrepreneurs due to their impact on the realisation of Sustainable Development Goals. Thus, this study examines the effects of funding mechanisms on women entrepreneurs' ability to employ other women in Africa. This study employs causal mediation analysis and Bayesian model averaging on World Bank Enterprise Survey data spanning 44 countries from 2006 to 2024, to quantify the effects of internal reserves, equity stakes, and bank lending on female hiring. The empirical findings reveal that reliance on internal funds and obstacles to bank finance significantly dampen women's ability to expand female employment. These disparities reflect discriminatory lending practices, pushing many women into entrepreneurship out of necessity rather than opportunity. However, firms with substantial female ownership are more likely to promote women into leadership roles, narrowing workplace gender gaps. Hence, to mitigate these inequalities and bolster women‐led job creation, this study recommends targeted interventions that include start‐up grants, loan guarantees, and gender‐sensitive credit policies. In addition, enhancing women entrepreneurs' access to finance can empower them to hire and advance women, closing labour gender gaps, improving leadership roles, and accelerating Africa's inclusive progress toward the SDGs.

Recently, the inflationary impacts of climate change shocks have emerged among key constraints to price and financial stability. In line with this development, some Central banks are incorporating climate change risks in their surveillance activities. Thus, this study examines the asymmetric inflationary impact of climate change shocks on food and general consumer prices in Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa. The study employs a panel quantile via the moment’s method and a wavelet coherency analysis for monthly from 2000M01 to 2023M12. The empirical results reveal that, first, there is a dynamic interconnectedness between climate change shocks and inflation. Secondly, the results show that climate change shocks have an inflationary impact on food and general consumer prices. However, the magnitude and direction of the impact depend on the prevailing inflationary regime. Finally, the analysis shows that climate change shocks raise inflation uncertainty. Collectively, these findings imply that climate change shocks are key sources of inflationary pressures and uncertainty, posing significant challenges to central banks’ inflation management. One implication of these findings is that central banks in these countries will likely face extreme difficulty stabilising inflation since monetary policy instruments are mainly demand management, and thus may be ineffective in dealing with climate change shocks. In line with the findings, the study recommends that these countries should enhance their inflation surveillance and monetary policy strategies but considering the potential climate change risks.