Browsing by Author "Oyenukan Olukayode O"

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    The Complementary Impact of Unemployment and Inflation on Literacy in West Africa from 2000 to 2023: Evidence from Panel ARDL
    (Crawford Journal of Economics and Management, 2026) Amire Comfort M; Oyenukan Olukayode O
    This study observes the complementary impact of unemployment and inflation rate on human capital education in 15 West African countries from 2000 to 2023. Education is proxied by literacy rate as a regressor against the selected macroeconomic environment. A Panel ARDL technique was adopted along Bounds test, Granger causality, and Impulse Response Function on data set of 358 observations for each variable employed. The study then, rooted in a three-pronged theoretical framework of Uzawa's Two - Sector Model of Human Capital Accumulation, Classical Theories of Labour & Price Stability, and Human Capital Theory. The findings disclose that in the short run, unemployment, inflation, and their interaction have insignificant relationships with education (literacy). In the long run, unemployment (-0.253281; p= 0.0000) and inflation (-0.194927; p= 0.0000) has individually reduced literacy outcomes but credit to the private sector positively expands education outcomes. The interaction term is positively significant (0.037879; p= 0.0000), indicating that households adapt by reallocating time to education under stagflation tohedge human capital idleness. And lastly, a long-run cointegration occurs only in Cape Verde and Ghana out of 15 West African countries. On that note, the study concludes that macroeconomic instability coerces literacy and induces 'JAPA syndrome' in West Africa. But its joint effect triggers adaptive education investment. Therefore, policy should combine price stability, job creation, credit expansion, and education quality reforms to sustain human capital expansions and restrain mass skilled migration termed 'JAPA syndrome' in West Africa.