Enabling stock market development in Africa: A review of the macroeconomic drivers

The article analyzes the influence of inflation on economic growth and substantiates the main directions of increasing the effectiveness of the central bank's anti-inflation policy.
In order to determine the limit of inflation, the excess of which has a negative impact on the economic growth, the relationship is analyzed between the inflation rate and the real GDP growth rate on the basis of IMF statistics using the example of 158 countries. It was determined that in 2010–2017, in the global economy, the 6.0% inflation was the marginal value of the inflation rate, beyond which the economic growth rate declined or slowed down.
Given the inverse relationship between the inflation rate and the real GDP growth rates as well as empirical calculations for the period 1996–2017, the threshold for inflation rate for Ukraine at the level of 4.51% was determined based on empirical calculations for the 1996–2017 period. The results indicate that the National Bank of Ukraine set the inflation target above the level of the calculated threshold inflation.
It has also been established that the link between the rates of nominal GDP growth, as opposed to real GDP, and the inflation rate, is more direct and more tight. It is substantiated that to analyze such dependence it is better to use GDP deflator instead of CPI. The results indicate that deflation constrains economic growth much less than inflation.
In order to increase the effectiveness of the central bank’s pro-cyclical monetary policy aimed at supporting economic growth, the relationship between the rates of real GDP growth and the indicator characterizing the gap between the growth rates of M3 and inflation, which actually reflects the real money supply dynamics, is determined. The results obtained allowed to conclude that in 2009 and 2014-2017, the artificial “squeezing” of the money supply took place in Ukraine, resulting in a decrease in the level of the economy monetization by 22.0% in 2017 compared to 2013.
It has been proved that in order to minimize the negative impact of inflationary processes on economic growth, the policy of the National Bank of Ukraine should be aimed at eliminating the artificial squeezing of the money supply through a reasonable increase in the economy monetization and the implementation of an effective monetary policy.

The main goal of the article is to analyze the role and influence of economic freedom on macroeconomic stability. For this purpose, the authors used the integrated index of economic freedom, calculated by the Heritage Foundation and Democracy Index. It is noted that this index indicator was calculated by the experts from the World Bank using the index of voice and accountability. In the paper, the authors used the multinational panel dataset for 11 countries of the EU for the purpose of checking the correlation between economic freedom, democracy and macroeconomic stability. It should be highlighted that the abovementioned 11 countries are related by the fluctuation of economic growth during the transformation process (1996–2016) from communist party to the democracy and political pluralism. In addition, the authors proposed to add the indicators of political stability and trade openness, which allowed to take into account implementation of flexible macroeconomic instruments, including monetary policy, which towards increasing the economic growth, employment and financial development of the countries. The findings are directed received using the regression equation with fixed and random effects showed the high level of correspondence of the model used with the original observations. Despite the chosen approach to estimate the macroeconomic stability, the findings showed that there is a positive and statistically significant impact of economic freedom and democracy on macroeconomic stability.

The design, implementation, and evaluation of energy policies in combating climate change are becoming increasingly evident to strengthen economic growth driven by the agricultural sector in most developing countries. The study analyzes the direct and indirect effects of renewable energy consumption (REC) on agriculture value-added (AgVA), CO2 emissions, and trade openness in the short- and long-run in the West African countries. The second-generation panel unit root tests, the panel cointegration methods, and Panel Vector Error Correction Model are used with World Bank data from 1990 to 2015. A panel Granger causality test was also used to determine the direction of causality between variables. Findings show a unidirectional relationship between AgVA, CO2 emissions, and REC; between REC, gross fixe capital formation (GFCF) and trade openness. Moreover, the bidirectional hypothesis is verified between agricultural development and trade openness. However, the null hypothesis is found between AgVA and GFCF, on the one hand, and GFCF and CO2 emissions, on the other hand. These results suggest that fostering renewable energy policy and revisiting trade policy toward reducing environmental pollution will enable agricultural development and boost the regional economy.

Acknowledgment
The author wants to thank Dr. Moukpè GNINIGUE for his technical supports and Prof. Jean Marcelin Bosson BROU from the University of Houphouet Boigny (Cote d’Ivoire), Dr. Odzadifo K. WONYRA and Dr. Hodabalo BATAKA from the University of Kara, Dr. Koffi Massesso ADJI from the West African Sciences Services Centre on Climate Change and Land Use (University of Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar) and Essotanam MAMBA from the University of Lomé for their constructive comments on the earlier version of this manuscripts. Finally, the author is grateful to the anonymous reviewers and Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Economics, whose comments have improved this paper. However, the opinions expressed in this paper are solely those of the author.