The Economics of Printing the Naira
This article explains why the idea of printing more money is unfounded given the state of the Nigerian economy.
Articles
2019 States IGR Report: States are not Taxing the Informal Sector Enough
65% of the total revenue of the 36 states and the FCT in 2019 came from FAAC while the remaining 35% came from IGR of the states. From the IGR, over 60% came from the formal sector (PAYE) while 20% came from the informal sector (Other Taxes and Direct Assessment).
April 2020 Consumer Price Index Report: A continuous rise in Inflation
The consumer price index, (CPI) increased by 12.34% (year-on-year) in April 2020. This is 8bps higher than the rate recorded in March 2020 (12.26%). This is the eighth consecutive month of increase since August 2019 (11.02%) and the highest level since April 2018 (12.48%).
Cashing In: How to Make Negative Interest Rates Work
By Ruchir Agarwal and Signe Krogstrup, IMF Blog / Image Credit: IMF Many central banks reduced policy interest rates to zero during the global financial crisis to boost growth. Ten years later, interest rates remain low in most countries. While the global economy has been recovering, future downturns are inevitable. Severe recessions have historically required 3–6 percentage points cut […]
Tracking Trade During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Most trade takes place by sea, and—for navigational safety purposes—virtually all cargo ships report their position, speed, and other information many times a day. A new IMF methodology using these data can help better inform us how international trade is affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Broad, Fast Action to Save Lives and Help Countries Rebuild
While the economic scale of the crisis grabs attention, and could even paralyze us, the human toll is even more pressing. Millions of lives in the poorest countries are on the precipice. The contagion they face isn’t just the virus, as devastating as that will be, but its travelling companions of poverty, deprivation, even starvation.
Five Things we Learnt from the 2019 NBS Poverty and Inequality Report
5 Key things you should know about the poverty situation in Nigeria based on the Nigerian Living Standards Survey.
Hunger Amid Plenty: How to Reduce the Impact of COVID-19 on the World’s Most Vulnerable People
The World Bank’s Commodity Markets Outlook comes with large caveats including uncertainty over the pandemic’s duration and severity; the direction of energy and fertilizer prices; currency movements; changes to trade and domestic support policies; and possible disruptions in global supply chains.
How Pandemics Leave the Poor Even Farther Behind
By Davide Furceri, Prakash Loungani, and Jonathan D. Ostry / Image Credit: IMF The COVID-19 crisis is now widely seen as the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression. In January, the IMF expected global income to grow 3 percent; it is now forecast to fall 3 percent, much worse than during the Great Recession of 2008-09. […]
COVID-19: What we Learnt One Week after Gradual Ease of Lockdown
On 4th May, the first phase of the gradual ease started and residents of Lagos state and Abuja were able to go out to their places of work again. As an independent economic research group, we also set out to observe how the citizens went about their economic activities, how they conveyed themselves, the cost associated with the movement as well as the activities of the transport unions in enforcing social distancing.