Nicholas Ngepah
Biographic Data
| ID | 2415005 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicholas Ngepah |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicholas |
| FAMILY NAME | Ngepah |
| SIGNATURE | NGEPAH N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Johannesburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1947-0008 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Does Knowledge Empower Climate Action? The Moderating Role of Governance in the Education–Carbon Neutrality Nexus
This study explores how governance quality moderates the impact of education on carbon emissions in 119 developing countries from 2003 to 2021. Using a two‐step System GMM approach, it examines the roles of primary, secondary, and tertiary education alongside six governance indicators. Results show that strong governance—especially regulatory quality and rule of law—amplifies the emissions‐reducing effects of primary and tertiary education. Secon…
Competition Policy and Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1 (No Poverty): The Role of Mergers and Acquisitions Adjudications in South Africa
South Africa faces persistently high poverty and inequality alongside a highly concentrated economic structure, raising questions about whether merger control, especially public‐interest provisions, can contribute to poverty reduction. However, empirical evidence directly linking merger adjudication outcomes to poverty remains limited. This study examines how merger adjudications influence poverty incidence and poverty depth in South Africa, focu…
The Nexus Between ICT Diffusion, Financial Development, Industrialization and Economic Growth: Evidence from Sub-Saharan African Countries
This study examines the nexus between ICT diffusion, financial development, industrialization, and economic growth using a novel panel VAR approach in the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation. Different proxies were used to measure the aforementioned variables, diverging from the commonly used measures in prior literature. Based on panel data covering 45 countries from 2000 to 2018, the empirical results suggest that there is bidirectio…
The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on maternal mortality: Evidence from global, developed and developing countries
BACKGROUND: This study examines the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on maternal mortality in alignment with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.1, which aims to reduce maternal mortality to below 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030. Despite advancements, maternal mortality remains disproportionately high in developing countries due to weaker healthcare infrastructure. METHODS: Using panel data from 70 countries (1990-2022), sourced from WH…
Exploring health outcome disparities in African regional economics communities: A multilevel linear mixed-effect analysis
Polices aimed at reducing unemployment rates and HIV incidence should be prioritized. In addition, governments should invest in elderly care programs and infrastructure development for water supply. Efforts to promote internet access should be complemented by interventions to enhance child health and healthcare accessibility. Encouraging urban planning policies that prioritize developing healthcare infrastructure and facilitating healthcare acces…
On the Path to Green Economy: Can Green Foreign Direct Investment Accelerate the Success of Climate Action
Today, emerging economies that struggle to cope with environmental problems often face challenges in implementing effective climate action policies. A significant portion of environmental pollution in these countries is caused by foreign direct investment. Meanwhile, the existing environmental economics literature remains silent on the environmental implications of green foreign direct investment (GFDI). This study examines the impact of GFDI on …
After the Johannesburg II Declaration, What Next for Ecological Sustainability in BRICS ? Perspectives on Green Innovations and Green Transitions
Advancing ecological sustainability, a major focus of the SDGs, necessitates evaluating the influence of green energy, sustainable technology, and resource utilization on ecological load capacity factors—an area that has remained underexplored in existing research. Also, the LCF method, which elucidates the unique features of the supply and demand dynamics in the natural environment, is still not used by BRICS environmental modelers. This study e…
Paving the way for sustainable green growth in G10 economies: Perspectives on green manufacturing employment and renewable energy employment
This study probed the contributions of green manufacturing (GM) and green energy (GE) employment to green growth (GRG) in the group of ten economies spanning 2000 to 2022. The study also explored the moderating implications of energy, economic, and information and communication technology (ICT) diversification, as well as energy uncertainties. Insights from the method of moments quantile regression estimator underscore notable heterogeneous effec…
A question for sustainable development goal 10: How relevant is innovation patenting receipts to income distributions
Several variables influence income distributions both for developed and developing countries. Based on the submissions of extant evaluations, policymakers have implemented several policy guidelines to curtail widening income gaps. Unfortunately, the wave of income disparity , particularly in developing countries, remained untamed. Surprisingly, scholars have rarely considered the perspective of innovation patenting receipts (IPRs) in income distr…
Trends in household out-of-pocket health expenditures and their underlying determinants: Explaining variations within African regional economic communities from countries panel data
BACKGROUND: The persistently high out-of-pocket health spending (OOPHE) in Africa raise significant concern about the prospect of reaching SDG health targets and UHC. The study examines the convergence hypothesis of OOPHE in 40 African countries from 2000 to 2019. METHODS: , club clustering, and merging methods on a panel of dataset obtained from the World Development Indicators, the World Governance Indicators, and the World Health Organization.…
The impact of antiretroviral treatment and child-focused unconditional cash transfers on child mortality
Although there is sufficient evidence in the epidemiological literature that antiretroviral treatment (ART) reduces child mortality, there is limited evidence of its effect in the socio-economic determinants of child mortality literature. Furthermore, evidence on the effect of child focused unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) on child mortality is limited, especially in the African context. Using South Africa's provincial level data over the peri…
Drivers of gender differentiated self-employment in developing countries: The instances of finance and information and communication technology
This study unveils new insights into how financial inclusion and information and communication technology (ICT) influence self-employment (aggregate and gender-specific) in developing countries. The dearth of information in this perspective, particularly in the context of Africa, compels this fresh evaluation. Thus, on account of the annual panel series for 52 African countries from 2005 to 2019, the system-generalized method-of-moments (sysGMM) …
Improving household well-being through entrepreneurship and inclusive finance in the context of the Next-11 countries
Scholarship brainstorming on household welfare enablers abounds in academic literature. Nonetheless, the perspective of entrepreneurship, particularly for the Next-11 countries, is underreported. Likewise, prior literature failed to investigate the influence of categorical (gender-specific) entrepreneurship on household welfare. Thus, this investigation covers this lacuna by examining the predictive effects of aggregate, male and female entrepren…
Achieving decarbonization goals in BRICS economies: Revisiting the joint role of composite risk index, green innovation, and environmental policy stringency
The Paris Agreement has united the global nations to embark on pathways to the decarbonization of their respective economies. However, the objective of achieving low-carbon growth is not as straightforward as it seems since the rapidly emerging and fossil fuel-dependent world economies are focused on expediting economic growth at the expense of poorer environmental consequences. Against this background, this study aims to explore the combined eff…
The impact of freight infrastructure investment on employment in South Africa
The purpose of the current study is to assess the economic impact of Transnet’s infrastructure investment on employment in the South African economy. We used data from Transnet, the South African Reserve Bank and Quantec dating from 1992 to 2016. Hausman–Taylor, pooled OLS, random effects and dynamic fixed effect models are used to validate the results. The estimated results reveal that capital investment in rail transportation creates employment…
Striving towards environmental sustainability in the BRICS economies: The combined influence of fiscal decentralization and environmental innovation
Realizing carbon reduction goals is a top priority for many industrialized and developing nations worldwide. The biggest severe effect of human activities is climate change. Fiscal decentralization, and eco-innovation are possible strategies for addressing environmental issues and reaching sustainability objectives for the environment. These strategies may also assist nations and levels of government in pursuing perceived sustainable development.…
Upholding the green agenda of COP27 through publicly funded R&D on energy efficiencies, renewables, nuclear and power storage technologies
Policy strategies to foster climate-change resilient ecosystems require broad-based identification of the mechanisms underlying the nexus. Prior investigations, maybe, inadvertently left so many factors unverified. Failing to verify, specifically, how climate change is influenced by public-funded research and development (R&D) on energy efficiencies, renewables, nuclear energy, and power storage technologies concealed vital policy insights. We ha…
Agricultural trade liberalisation, agricultural total factor productivity growth and food security in Africa
The study draws inference on the impact of agricultural trade openness, total factor productivity (TFP) growth, and domestic agriculture support on food security in Africa. To retain estimates efficiency and consistency in the presence of complex error terms, we employed the Panel-Corrected-Standard-Error (PCSE) estimator on panel data spanning 2005–2016 for 13 African countries. Results suggest that agricultural trade liberalisation and TFP have…
Socio-economic determinants of global Covid-19 mortalities: Policy lessons for current and future pandemics
This paper examines the different socio-economic determinants of the fatalities associated with the COVID-19 pandemic globally in social determinants of health frameworks. It adapts the Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood (PPML) and the quantile regression techniques to effectively exploit the non-linear estimates of the data in order to derive non-biased point estimates at each quantile and make interquantile comparisons. This is particularly usef…
Military expenditure, security outcome and industrialisation in Africa: Evidence from a panel data analysis
This study examines the cause-and-effect relationship between military expenditure, security outcome and industrialisation for a panel of 35 African countries spanning from 1990 to 2015. We employed: (i) the Pairwise Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test; and (ii) the newly developed panel VAR in generalised method of moment (GMM) estimation approach was applied to determine what magnitude can future disparities in industrialisation be explained…
The effects of inequality on total factor productivity across districts in South Africa: A spatial econometric analysis
Military expenditure and economic growth: Evidence from a heterogeneous panel of African countries
This study investigates the causal relationship between military expenditure and economic growth by using a balanced panel of 35 African countries spanning 1990 to 2015. It uses the more recently developed bivariate heterogeneous panel causality, GMM and SGMM estimation techniques. The country-by-country causality results reveal:(i) no causal relationship between military expenditure and growth in seven countries; (ii) unidirectional causality fr…
A review of theories and evidence of inclusive growth: An economic perspective for Africa
The effects of inequality on total factor productivity across districts in South Africa: A spatial econometric analysis
Upholding the green agenda of COP27 through publicly funded R&D on energy efficiencies, renewables, nuclear and power storage technologies
Policy strategies to foster climate-change resilient ecosystems require broad-based identification of the mechanisms underlying the nexus. Prior investigations, maybe, inadvertently left so many factors unverified. Failing to verify, specifically, how climate change is influenced by public-funded research and development (R&D) on energy efficiencies, renewables, nuclear energy, and power storage technologies concealed vital policy insights. We ha…
Drivers of gender differentiated self-employment in developing countries: The instances of finance and information and communication technology
This study unveils new insights into how financial inclusion and information and communication technology (ICT) influence self-employment (aggregate and gender-specific) in developing countries. The dearth of information in this perspective, particularly in the context of Africa, compels this fresh evaluation. Thus, on account of the annual panel series for 52 African countries from 2005 to 2019, the system-generalized method-of-moments (sysGMM) …
Improving household well-being through entrepreneurship and inclusive finance in the context of the Next-11 countries
Scholarship brainstorming on household welfare enablers abounds in academic literature. Nonetheless, the perspective of entrepreneurship, particularly for the Next-11 countries, is underreported. Likewise, prior literature failed to investigate the influence of categorical (gender-specific) entrepreneurship on household welfare. Thus, this investigation covers this lacuna by examining the predictive effects of aggregate, male and female entrepren…
A review of theories and evidence of inclusive growth: An economic perspective for Africa
Military expenditure and economic growth: Evidence from a heterogeneous panel of African countries
This study investigates the causal relationship between military expenditure and economic growth by using a balanced panel of 35 African countries spanning 1990 to 2015. It uses the more recently developed bivariate heterogeneous panel causality, GMM and SGMM estimation techniques. The country-by-country causality results reveal:(i) no causal relationship between military expenditure and growth in seven countries; (ii) unidirectional causality fr…
The effects of inequality on total factor productivity across districts in South Africa: A spatial econometric analysis
Socio-economic determinants of global Covid-19 mortalities: Policy lessons for current and future pandemics
This paper examines the different socio-economic determinants of the fatalities associated with the COVID-19 pandemic globally in social determinants of health frameworks. It adapts the Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood (PPML) and the quantile regression techniques to effectively exploit the non-linear estimates of the data in order to derive non-biased point estimates at each quantile and make interquantile comparisons. This is particularly usef…
Military expenditure, security outcome and industrialisation in Africa: Evidence from a panel data analysis
This study examines the cause-and-effect relationship between military expenditure, security outcome and industrialisation for a panel of 35 African countries spanning from 1990 to 2015. We employed: (i) the Pairwise Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test; and (ii) the newly developed panel VAR in generalised method of moment (GMM) estimation approach was applied to determine what magnitude can future disparities in industrialisation be explained…
Agricultural trade liberalisation, agricultural total factor productivity growth and food security in Africa
The study draws inference on the impact of agricultural trade openness, total factor productivity (TFP) growth, and domestic agriculture support on food security in Africa. To retain estimates efficiency and consistency in the presence of complex error terms, we employed the Panel-Corrected-Standard-Error (PCSE) estimator on panel data spanning 2005–2016 for 13 African countries. Results suggest that agricultural trade liberalisation and TFP have…
Achieving decarbonization goals in BRICS economies: Revisiting the joint role of composite risk index, green innovation, and environmental policy stringency
The Paris Agreement has united the global nations to embark on pathways to the decarbonization of their respective economies. However, the objective of achieving low-carbon growth is not as straightforward as it seems since the rapidly emerging and fossil fuel-dependent world economies are focused on expediting economic growth at the expense of poorer environmental consequences. Against this background, this study aims to explore the combined eff…
The impact of freight infrastructure investment on employment in South Africa
The purpose of the current study is to assess the economic impact of Transnet’s infrastructure investment on employment in the South African economy. We used data from Transnet, the South African Reserve Bank and Quantec dating from 1992 to 2016. Hausman–Taylor, pooled OLS, random effects and dynamic fixed effect models are used to validate the results. The estimated results reveal that capital investment in rail transportation creates employment…
Striving towards environmental sustainability in the BRICS economies: The combined influence of fiscal decentralization and environmental innovation
Realizing carbon reduction goals is a top priority for many industrialized and developing nations worldwide. The biggest severe effect of human activities is climate change. Fiscal decentralization, and eco-innovation are possible strategies for addressing environmental issues and reaching sustainability objectives for the environment. These strategies may also assist nations and levels of government in pursuing perceived sustainable development.…
Upholding the green agenda of COP27 through publicly funded R&D on energy efficiencies, renewables, nuclear and power storage technologies
Policy strategies to foster climate-change resilient ecosystems require broad-based identification of the mechanisms underlying the nexus. Prior investigations, maybe, inadvertently left so many factors unverified. Failing to verify, specifically, how climate change is influenced by public-funded research and development (R&D) on energy efficiencies, renewables, nuclear energy, and power storage technologies concealed vital policy insights. We ha…
A question for sustainable development goal 10: How relevant is innovation patenting receipts to income distributions
Several variables influence income distributions both for developed and developing countries. Based on the submissions of extant evaluations, policymakers have implemented several policy guidelines to curtail widening income gaps. Unfortunately, the wave of income disparity , particularly in developing countries, remained untamed. Surprisingly, scholars have rarely considered the perspective of innovation patenting receipts (IPRs) in income distr…
Trends in household out-of-pocket health expenditures and their underlying determinants: Explaining variations within African regional economic communities from countries panel data
BACKGROUND: The persistently high out-of-pocket health spending (OOPHE) in Africa raise significant concern about the prospect of reaching SDG health targets and UHC. The study examines the convergence hypothesis of OOPHE in 40 African countries from 2000 to 2019. METHODS: , club clustering, and merging methods on a panel of dataset obtained from the World Development Indicators, the World Governance Indicators, and the World Health Organization.…
The impact of antiretroviral treatment and child-focused unconditional cash transfers on child mortality
Although there is sufficient evidence in the epidemiological literature that antiretroviral treatment (ART) reduces child mortality, there is limited evidence of its effect in the socio-economic determinants of child mortality literature. Furthermore, evidence on the effect of child focused unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) on child mortality is limited, especially in the African context. Using South Africa's provincial level data over the peri…
Drivers of gender differentiated self-employment in developing countries: The instances of finance and information and communication technology
This study unveils new insights into how financial inclusion and information and communication technology (ICT) influence self-employment (aggregate and gender-specific) in developing countries. The dearth of information in this perspective, particularly in the context of Africa, compels this fresh evaluation. Thus, on account of the annual panel series for 52 African countries from 2005 to 2019, the system-generalized method-of-moments (sysGMM) …
Improving household well-being through entrepreneurship and inclusive finance in the context of the Next-11 countries
Scholarship brainstorming on household welfare enablers abounds in academic literature. Nonetheless, the perspective of entrepreneurship, particularly for the Next-11 countries, is underreported. Likewise, prior literature failed to investigate the influence of categorical (gender-specific) entrepreneurship on household welfare. Thus, this investigation covers this lacuna by examining the predictive effects of aggregate, male and female entrepren…
The Nexus Between ICT Diffusion, Financial Development, Industrialization and Economic Growth: Evidence from Sub-Saharan African Countries
This study examines the nexus between ICT diffusion, financial development, industrialization, and economic growth using a novel panel VAR approach in the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation. Different proxies were used to measure the aforementioned variables, diverging from the commonly used measures in prior literature. Based on panel data covering 45 countries from 2000 to 2018, the empirical results suggest that there is bidirectio…
The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on maternal mortality: Evidence from global, developed and developing countries
BACKGROUND: This study examines the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on maternal mortality in alignment with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.1, which aims to reduce maternal mortality to below 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030. Despite advancements, maternal mortality remains disproportionately high in developing countries due to weaker healthcare infrastructure. METHODS: Using panel data from 70 countries (1990-2022), sourced from WH…
Exploring health outcome disparities in African regional economics communities: A multilevel linear mixed-effect analysis
Polices aimed at reducing unemployment rates and HIV incidence should be prioritized. In addition, governments should invest in elderly care programs and infrastructure development for water supply. Efforts to promote internet access should be complemented by interventions to enhance child health and healthcare accessibility. Encouraging urban planning policies that prioritize developing healthcare infrastructure and facilitating healthcare acces…
On the Path to Green Economy: Can Green Foreign Direct Investment Accelerate the Success of Climate Action
Today, emerging economies that struggle to cope with environmental problems often face challenges in implementing effective climate action policies. A significant portion of environmental pollution in these countries is caused by foreign direct investment. Meanwhile, the existing environmental economics literature remains silent on the environmental implications of green foreign direct investment (GFDI). This study examines the impact of GFDI on …
After the Johannesburg II Declaration, What Next for Ecological Sustainability in BRICS ? Perspectives on Green Innovations and Green Transitions
Advancing ecological sustainability, a major focus of the SDGs, necessitates evaluating the influence of green energy, sustainable technology, and resource utilization on ecological load capacity factors—an area that has remained underexplored in existing research. Also, the LCF method, which elucidates the unique features of the supply and demand dynamics in the natural environment, is still not used by BRICS environmental modelers. This study e…
Paving the way for sustainable green growth in G10 economies: Perspectives on green manufacturing employment and renewable energy employment
This study probed the contributions of green manufacturing (GM) and green energy (GE) employment to green growth (GRG) in the group of ten economies spanning 2000 to 2022. The study also explored the moderating implications of energy, economic, and information and communication technology (ICT) diversification, as well as energy uncertainties. Insights from the method of moments quantile regression estimator underscore notable heterogeneous effec…
Does Knowledge Empower Climate Action? The Moderating Role of Governance in the Education–Carbon Neutrality Nexus
This study explores how governance quality moderates the impact of education on carbon emissions in 119 developing countries from 2003 to 2021. Using a two‐step System GMM approach, it examines the roles of primary, secondary, and tertiary education alongside six governance indicators. Results show that strong governance—especially regulatory quality and rule of law—amplifies the emissions‐reducing effects of primary and tertiary education. Secon…
Competition Policy and Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1 (No Poverty): The Role of Mergers and Acquisitions Adjudications in South Africa
South Africa faces persistently high poverty and inequality alongside a highly concentrated economic structure, raising questions about whether merger control, especially public‐interest provisions, can contribute to poverty reduction. However, empirical evidence directly linking merger adjudication outcomes to poverty remains limited. This study examines how merger adjudications influence poverty incidence and poverty depth in South Africa, focu…
Economics (21 works) · Economic growth (10 works) · Business (9 works) · Energy, Environment, Economic Growth (8 works) · Demographic economics (7 works) · Econometrics (7 works) · Geography (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth (6 works) · Macroeconomics (6 works)