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This study examines the role of credit bureaus in improving practices related to the management of credit risk. Furthermore, it explores how information derived from credit bureaus helps in making informed decisions on lending by lenders, as well as how to hedge losses associated with credit. This study utilizes a conceptual review method with existing literature, industry reports, and regulatory guidelines in examining the roles, operations, and impacts of credit bureaus in the concept of credit risk management. It studies the data collection and dissemination processes and important principles on which credit bureau operations depend. The study implies that credit bureaus contribute a considerable amount to the improvement of credit risk management through the provision of the most complete borrower information, aiding in the proper scoring of credits, and facilitating proactive risk management. Such practices reduce asymmetry of information, improve efficiency in lending, and ensure responsible lending. It presents an overview of the existing knowledge base on credit bureaus and credit risk management in a coherent format. It emphasizes the need for data quality, security, and supervision to enable the effective operations of credit bureaus. The results have significance for lenders, credit bureaus, and policymakers alike. They may also assist lenders in making use of credit bureau data to enhance their credit risk evaluations and lending practices. This may lead to improvements in data quality and security within credit bureaus. Closer scrutiny by the regulatory body will add another layer of assurance to the integrity and fairness of the credit reporting system.

Keywords: Credit Bureau, Credit Risk Management, Credit Report, Data Quality, Financial Institutions
JEL Codes: G21, G32, D82.

This study looked at how Nigeria’s tax structure affected the country’s economic growth. Revenue is unquestionably essential for the state to fulfill the social contract by providing for the citizens’ basic needs. This study specifically assessed the effect of the petroleum profit tax, company income tax, value added tax, capital gain tax, and stamp duty on Nigeria’s economic growth. Time series data from 1999 to 2023 were used in the study. The pertinent data were taken from Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Bureau of National Statistics (NBS), and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) publications. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) regression analysis approach was utilized. According to the study, petroleum profit tax and company income tax had a significant effect on Nigeria’s economic growth throughout the study period; however stamp duty had an insignificant positive effect on economic growth in Nigeria. In the meantime, value added tax and capital gains tax significantly hampered Nigeria’s economic growth during the study period. The study suggested, among other things, that the government should start a strategic effort to diversify the economy in order to boost economic growth and development, especially because petroleum-related sources of income are declining.

Keywords: Tax structure, economic growth, Nigeria.
JEL: C22, C82, H2, H24, H24

In Nigeria, budget financial viability is not adequate to fund and renovate decrepit infrastructure, let alone carry out new projects. Hence, this study examined the impact of the capital market on Nigeria’s infrastructure development between 1981 and 2023, using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. According to the findings, Nigeria’s capital market has not had any beneficial long-term effect on the country’s infrastructure development. Specifically, while the all-share-index has an insignificant long-run effect, government stocks and corporate bonds exerted significant adverse impact on infrastructure development. However, equities had a beneficial effect on infrastructure development in the long-run. The result implies that the increase in accruing yield to capital market instruments has had more negative than positive impact on infrastructure development due to systemic challenges. Applicable policy measures were suggested by the paper.

Keywords: Capital market; Bonds; Equities; Stocks; Infrastructure; Development.
JEL Classification: G11, G18, H54.

The study sought to explore the effects of macroeconomic volatility and interest rate differential on stock market liquidity in Nigeria and South Africa from 1984 to 2023.The gross domestic product and Interest rate differentials were used as explained variables ,while the money supply and exchange rate served as explanatory variables. The base year (1984) was marked by Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)Launched by the United Nations to assist in alleviating famine in Africa.A population of 54 countries in Sub-Sahara Africa was sampled ,while two countries were selected based on the volume of their market transactions over the years under study.We carried out stationarity test,co-integration test,parameter stability test,arch effect and OLS.Findings indicated that (i) Macroeconomic volatility have a positive and significance effect on the stock market liquidity in Nigeria, while in South Africa, Macroeconomic volatility have positive and non-significance effect on the stock market liquidity .(ii) Interest rate have a negative and non-significance effect on the stock market liquidity in South Africa and Nigeria .It was recommended that government need to enact sound monetary policies in order to enhance economic growth in both countries under study. The government will also need to benchmark for best practices in monetary policy development from those economies that are more advanced in order to develop better monetary policies that can improve the performance of the stock market .(ii)The government need to create an enabling environment and promote infrastructural development to facilitate the ease of stock market activities in particular and financial system of both countries.

Keywords: Macro-economic volatility, Stock Market , co-integration and Arch Effect.

This study used Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach provide analysis of the effects of real interest rate, external and domestic debt to GDP ratio and other factors on economic growth for a period (1986–2023) for Uganda. This study observes a negative relationship between external and a positive domestic debt and growth in the short run. The estimates of the model show that a 10 percentage point increase in the external debt- o-gross domestic product ratio will result in 91.9 percent point reduction in economic growth. In addition, a 10 percent increase in the domestic debt to GDP ratio results in a 30.7 percentage increase in economic growth. Also the real interest rate affects the economic growth negatively. A 10 percentage increase in real interest rate will result in a 1.06 reduction in economic growth. In the long run, the results established that both the external and domestic debt to GDP ratio affect economic growth negatively while the real interest rate affect economic growth positively. A 10 percent increase in external and domestic debt to GDP ratio will result in a 21.5 and 4.97 percentage reduction in economic growth respectively. While a 10 percentage point increase in real interest rate will cause a 2.7 increase in economic growth in the same period.

Keywords: Real Interest Rate, External debt, economic growth, Domestic debt, ARDL, Uganda

The movement in petroleum prices has been regarded as one of the major causes of instability in macroeconomic variables, especially poverty after the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, this paper examines the relationship between petroleum prices and poverty in Nigeria, using annual time series data from 1986-2023. However, the unit root test result reports a mixture of 1(0) and 1(1) order of cointegration, which enables the study to adopt the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach developed by Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001) to find out the short-run and long-run relationships between the variables. The empirical findings indicate that petroleum prices have a positive and significant impact on poverty in Nigeria both in the short term and the long term. In light of these results, it is recommended that the government should take policy measures to reduce hardship, pain, deepening economic woes, and poverty that is driven by the rise in petroleum prices in the country.

Keywords: petroleum price, poverty rate, inflation rate and gross domestic products.