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Passive investing has gained popularity in recent decades among institutions and individual investors. Most mutual funds fail to beat their benchmarks continuously over a long period. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are the next evolution of mutual funds. This study explains the evolution of the exchange traded funds industry in India and key growth drivers for the ETF industry in India. We also compute the year-on-year growth rates for ETF assets (using statistics provided by the Association of Mutual Funds of India), document the trends, and provide insight into the previous growth and expansion of the ETFs industry in India. Earlier gold ETFs dominated the Indian ETF industry, but currently, equity ETFs dominate the whole industry. Due to the notable increase in the value of the ETFs, several asset management firms started releasing more ETF schemes. The rise in trading volume suggests a strong interest of investors in the ETF schemes. The study also explains the key bottlenecks for ETF adoption in India and the role of the regulator i.e. SEBI to overcome these hindrances. There is a large potential to grow the Indian ETF market with the low expense ratio, transparency, simplicity, and ease of use of exchange-traded funds.

Keywords: Exchange-traded funds, ETFs, mutual funds, index funds, passive investment
JEL codes: G10, G23, G31, D53

This paper studies the impact of a population’s educational level on the entrepreneurship of an economy. Using a dataset from China’s national population censuses from 1990 to 2020 and two-way fixed effects models, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between the average years of schooling of a population and the entrepreneurship rate. Moreover, we use fractions of the population with different educational levels as key independent variables and find that only a larger population with a senior high school education can significantly increase entrepreneurship. A larger fraction of people with a college education or higher education, however, does not have a significant effect on entrepreneurship.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, education, human capital effect, opportunity cost effect
JEL code: A20, O15, J24, J38

This study was inspired by Nigerian Deposit Money institutions’ persistent poor performance, which in turn affects the return on investment available to capital providers. It concentrated on debt financing and return on investment for businesses that transfer money from economic sectors with surpluses to those with deficits. The study looks at how the return on assets of Nigerian listed deposit money banks is affected by both total debt to total assets and long-term debt to total assets. The audited financial accounts of eleven (11) of the fourteen (14) DMBs that make up the study population over a ten-year period (2014–2023) provided secondary data for the study. The Trade-Off Theory serves as the foundation for the study, which used a correlational research approach. The panel data utilized in the study was analyzed using STATA 14 and several regression models were applied. The 110 observations’ results from the Random Effect Regression model were examined. The results showed that whereas long-term debt to total assets (LTDTA) has a considerable and positive impact on ROA, total debt to total assets (TDTA) has a negative but significant impact. The study’s findings showed that debt financing has a 26% impact on the ROA of listed DMBs in Nigeria, with long-term debt accounting for the remaining 74% of the influence. The study recommends that DMBs should use debt more sparingly in order to prevent debt traps that could jeopardize their ability to continue operating in the event of default.

Keywords: Debt finance, long-term debt, returns on assets, total debt to total assets, trade-off theory

By implementing different policies and intervening in the economy, governments have a significant impact on the state of affairs. The purpose of this study is to investigate how government economic policies affect Nigeria’s economic growth. The study makes use of secondary data sources. Secondary data were gathered from international organizations, statistical agencies, and official publications, including the World Bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the National Bureau of Statistics. This study used quantitative analysis as its only method. The quantitative analysis involved econometric techniques, such as regression (multiple) analysis and time-series modeling (panel), to determine the statistical significance and direction of the relationships between the government economic policies and the measures of economic development in Nigeria. The study finds out that here is an inverse relationship between the real gross domestic product (RGDP), tariffs (TARR), and interest rates (INTR). RGDP has a significant negative correlation (-0.6749) with INTR and a moderately negative correlation (-0.5774) with TARR. The interest rate (INTR) and tariff (TARR) have a positive correlation (0.7233), suggesting a potential association between the variables. There is a fairly positive association (0.7278) between sectoral support (SECSUPP) and the exchange rate (EXR). According to the study, efforts should be made to bolster the beneficial effects that have been identified, such as advancements in technology or infrastructure, trade policies that could strengthen the exchange rate, and sector-specific government programs that could strengthen the exchange rate.

Keywords: Economic policy, economic development, sectorial support, exchange rate and gross domestic product
JEL Classification: D9, E4, H3, H5

This research analyses the effect of trade facilitation on participation in regional value chains in West Africa. This article exploits the UNCTAD database to measure involvement in global value chains using GVC participation indices through panel data of West African countries from 2000 to 2018 through the instrumental variable two-stage least squares estimator (IV-2SLS). The results show that any trade facilitation effort made by West African countries has a positive effect on participation in regional value chains in the region. The trial also shows that reducing trade costs (tariffs and non-tariff barriers) improves participation in global value chains in West Africa. In the light of these results, it is desirable that policy makers play an important role in the recovery of African economies, with the advent of the AfCFTA, by supporting trade facilitation to promote increased participation in value chains in West Africa.

Keywords: Value Chains, Facilitation, Trade, Rrade Barriers, West Africa.