Publications by year
In Press
Oyekola O, Odewunmi S (In Press). The Consequence of Societal Secrecy for Financial Constraints.
2023
Oyekola O (2023). Democracy does improve health.
Social Indicators ResearchAbstract:
Democracy does improve health
In this paper, we study the extent to which the spread of democracy affects country-level health outcomes in 115 countries, between 1960 and 2015. To do this, we use both the level and change measures of democracy in our regressions, concentrating on within-country variations. Our finding is that a one standard deviation increase of 0.35 in the level of democracy is associated with a 0.11 standard deviation increase in life expectancy, even after accounting for various country and time features. This corresponds to an increase in life expectancy of around 5 years for a country initially, with a mean life expectancy of 54 years. However, we do not find the change measure of democracy to be consistently influential. These results are robust to employing alternative model specifications, to using different subsamples of the data, and to alternative estimation techniques. We also find that these critical effects are retained when using other measures of health status. In particular, we observe that as the level of democracy rises, each of infant mortality, child mortality, and crude death decreases. We, therefore, conclude that the material role of democratic institutions in fostering population health is of first-order relevance.
Abstract.
DOI.
Sakariyahu R, Etudaiye-Muhtar FO, Lawal R, Oyekola O (2023). Financial technology and human development in Africa: the moderating impact of energy poverty.
Abstract:
Financial technology and human development in Africa: the moderating impact of energy poverty
Several studies in the academic literature have identified the critical role of financial technology (fintech) in improving socio-economic conditions of nations, measured by human development index (HDI). However, despite the efforts to increase HDI using fintech, the ranking of African countries on the index table remains low. Given that access to electricity is imperative for fintech, and fundamental to human development, we provide novel evidence by investigating the degree to which the prevailing energy poverty in Africa affects the success of fintech on human development on the continent. Employing a number of econometric techniques which include linear (OLS, Prais-Winsten), instrumental-variable (GMM) and non-linear (M-M Quantile) regression models, our empirical framework is robust to heteroscedasticity, endogeneity, and cross-sectional dependence among countries. Our results show that fintech has a significant positive impact on human development and the impact remains consistent irrespective of the estimation methods employed. However, when we split our sample based on regions and income classification proposed by the World Bank, our results show that the impact of fintech, when interacted with access to electricity, on human development is more pronounced in the upper-middle, high-income, Eastern, Central and Southern countries. The Western countries have not significantly benefitted from fintech adoption, perhaps because those countries fall in the low-income categories and have a high prevalence of energy challenge. In light of the current state of human development in Africa, our study advocates for more investment in energy infrastructure for the rapid realization of the gains of fintech.
Abstract.
Sakariyahu R, Lawal R, Oyekola O, Dosumu OE, Adigun R (2023). Natural disasters, investor sentiments and stock market reactions: Evidence from Turkey–Syria earthquakes.
Economics Letters,
228, 111153-111153.
DOI.
Dosumu OE, Sakariyahu R, Oyekola O, Lawal R (2023). Panic bank runs, global market contagion and the financial consequences of social media.
Economics Letters,
228, 111170-111170.
DOI.
2022
Oyèkọ́lá Ọ (2022). A cross-country analysis of the roles of border openness, human capital and legal institutions in explaining economic development.
Journal of International Trade and Economic Development,
31(1), 75-108.
Abstract:
A cross-country analysis of the roles of border openness, human capital and legal institutions in explaining economic development
Globalisation, human capital, and institutions have been widely recognised in the literature to be causally important for economic development. Most of the available studies, however, treat measures of these determinants either separately or as substitutes. In this paper, we study the income effects of border openness to migration, education, and the rule of law (our proxies for globalisation, human capital, and institutions, respectively). Using cross-country data covering all regions of the world, and employing instrumental variables for all three factors, we establish that they each have a robust, positive, and strong association with economic development. We then consider whether there are any useful interrelations between the three factors in explaining income. On the interaction effects, the results show that the impact on income of: (i) migration can be materially affected by cultivating good institutions but this effect is not dependent on the education level; (ii) education is important irrespective of the levels of migration and institutions; and (iii) institutions is significantly improved by raising the level of education but is not influenced by migration level. Our paper makes a significant contribution as the first investigation into the effects of migration, education, and institutions jointly and as complements.
Abstract.
DOI.
Oyekola O, Meenagh D, Minford P (2022). Global Shocks in the US Economy: Effects on Output and the Real Exchange Rate.
Open Economies Review,
34(2), 411-435.
Abstract:
Global Shocks in the US Economy: Effects on Output and the Real Exchange Rate
AbstractThis paper studies the effects of global shocks, relative to domestic shocks (productivity, mark-up, and demand shocks), in accounting for US business cycle fluctuations. We do this by developing and estimating a two-sector open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that features several real frictions and structural shocks. The central finding from the estimated model is that global shocks are the main driver of movements in many US macroeconomic aggregates. Particularly, we find that they explain around 40% of the variations in our main variables of interest—output and real exchange rate. This important quantitative contribution is achieved by using indirect inference estimation techniques to test the model. We identify exogenous world demand, oil price shocks, preference for exported energy-intensive goods, and the price of imported energy-intensive goods as the global shocks most prominent in causing the largest variations in economic outcomes. By contrast, foreign interest rates and preference for aggregate exported goods are found to be bystanders.
Abstract.
DOI.
Oyekola O (2022). God’s not dead, just overregulated: state history and the regulation of religion at various stages of development.
Abstract:
God’s not dead, just overregulated: state history and the regulation of religion at various stages of development
Intensity of governmental interference with religion differs extensively across the world. We suggest that part of this variation is entrenched in the historical development of statehood, which has played a crucial role in shaping many aspects of modern-day society, and propose that this further depends on a country’s relative stage of economic development. Using data on a cross-section of countries, our indicator of state history reveals a substantially positive effect on measures of current religious regulation. In addition to this persistent influence, we show that state history exhibits differential effects on religious regulations across countries. The empirical results indicate that the state history - religious regulation nexus is strongest in middle-income countries, followed by low-income countries. However, this association is rarely observed amid high-income countries.
Abstract.
Oyekola O (2022). How Resilient is the US Economy to Foreign Disturbances?.
MATHEMATICS,
10(9).
Author URL.
DOI.
2021
Oyèkọ́lá Ọ (2021). Finance and inequality in a panel of US States.
Empirical Economics,
61(5), 2739-2795.
Abstract:
Finance and inequality in a panel of US States
We examine the impact of sector-based reform on income inequality, concentrating on state banking deregulation in the USA, for which we employ annual balanced panel data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, covering the period from 1970 to 2000, for our baseline analysis. The estimation strategy exploits the variation across states and years in the enactment of laws that remove restrictions on in-state bank branch geographical expansion and cross-state bank business operational expansion to compute the effects of developments in the financial sector on income inequality. We find evidence that inequality on average decreases with within-state branching reform, whereas it on average increases with between-state banking deregulation. Utilizing five different measures of inequality (top decile income share, Atkinson index, the Gini coefficient, relative mean deviation, and Theil entropy index), we determine that our finding materially depends on which measure of income inequality is being considered. We argue that this has not been stressed in the previous literature.
Abstract.
DOI.
Oyekola O (2021). Persistence of Religious States.
DOI.
Oyekola O (2021). Persistence of religious states.
Abstract:
Persistence of religious states
The relationship between state and religion has deep roots in history, being recognised as one of the oldest alliances, or antagonists, known to mankind. Recent evidence suggests that a wall of separation between the two have become widespread. Yet, among our sample of 147 countries, 56 had state religion in 2000. This paper offers an inquiry into why religious states persist in some countries, and not in others, to the present. Our work suggests two reasons. First, a state may act as an ‘institutional carrier’ of the history of being a religious state. Second, a state may act as an ‘institutional barrier’ to the potential discontinuity of this history. Our analysis construes these ‘carrier’ and ‘barrier’ functions of a state as reinforcing each other, and we operationalise them by exploiting cross-national disparities in state history. Consistent with this understanding that longer state history upholds the persistence of religious states, we obtain a remarkably robust positive link between our indicators of state history and religious states. By highlighting the significant role of historical processes in determining the formation and persistence of religious states, our results also underline state history to be a prototypical source of cross-national differences in other proxies for socio-institutional qualities.
Abstract.
Oyèkọ́lá Ọ (2021). Where do people live longer?.
Research in Economics,
75(1), 21-44.
Abstract:
Where do people live longer?
Can historical exposures of non-European countries to European migrants explain part of their current health outcomes? We find that higher European share of the colonial population robustly raised life expectancy and reduced both fertility and infant mortality rates of present-day population in these former colonies. Specifically, after controlling for other plausible determinants, our baseline results imply that, on average, countries at the 95th percentile of the European share of the colonial population, compared to those at the 5th percentile, live 17 years longer, have 1 less child, and experience 54 fewer infant deaths per 1000 live births. A causal interpretation is given to these results by considering various identification strategies. Overall, our results indicate that health fortunes around the world, on average, improved because of European colonial settlers and that differences in the current levels of health performance can be traced back to differential levels of European colonial settlements, where countries that experienced higher influx of colonial Europeans have better health prosperity nowadays than countries with lower inflow of colonial Europeans. A puzzlement arises, however, as countries with no colonial European settlements have outperformed countries with low colonial European settlements. Thus, explaining this phenomenon and exploring how historical migration holds such an enduring influence on the health of nations today opens up an important avenue for future research.
Abstract.
DOI.
2020
Oyekola O (2020). A Cross-Country Analysis of the Roles of Border Openness, Human Capital and Legal Institutions in Explaining Economic Development.
DOI.
Oyekola O (2020). Health Accounting in 124 Colonised Countries.
DOI.
Oyekola O (2020). Life May be Unfair, But Do Democracies Make it Any Less Burdensome?.
DOI.
Oyekola O (2020). Life May be Unfair, But Do Democracies Make it Any Less Burdensome?.
Abstract:
Life May be Unfair, But Do Democracies Make it Any Less Burdensome?
Using a large panel of countries, this paper studies whether, or not, democracies can disproportionately produce better economic outcomes for the poor than non-democracies. To deal with the endogeneity of democracy and inequality, a regional democratisation wave is used to isolate the exogenous variation in country-level democracy. Our main finding is that the exogenous component of democracy significantly and robustly decreased inequality in the long run, after controlling for key inequality determinants. We identify that the two potential mechanisms through which democracy affects inequality are structural transformation and middle-class bias channels. However, we find that this negative democracy-inequality link is reversed in the short run.
Abstract.
Meenagh D, Minford P, Oyekola O (2020). Postwar Business Cycles: What Are the Prime Drivers?.
DOI.
2019
Oyekola O (2019). Democracy and the Poor Reassessed.
DOI.
Oyekola O (2019). Democracy does improve health.
Abstract:
Democracy does improve health
In this paper, we study the extent to which the spread of democracy affects country-level health outcomes in 115 countries, between 1960 and 2015. To do this, we use both the level and change measures of democracy in our regressions, concentrating on within-country variations. Our finding is that a one standard deviation increase of 0.35 in the level of democracy is associated with a 0.11 standard deviation increase in life expectancy, even after accounting for various country and time features. This corresponds to an increase in life expectancy of around 5 years for a country initially, with a mean life expectancy of 54 years. However, we do not find the change measure of democracy to be consistently influential. These results are robust to employing alternative model specifications, to using different subsamples of the data, and to alternative estimation techniques. We also find that these critical effects are retained when using other measures of health status. In particular, we observe that as the level of democracy rises, each of infant mortality, child mortality, and crude death decreases. We, therefore, conclude that the material role of democratic institutions in fostering population health is of first-order relevance.
Abstract.
Oyekola O (2019). Finance and Inequality in a Panel of US States.
DOI.
Oyekola O (2019). Where Do People Live Longer?.
DOI.
2015
Meenagh D, Minford P, Oyekola O (2015). Energy Business Cycles.
DOI.
Meenagh D, Minford P, Oyekola O (2015). Oil Prices and the Dynamics of Output and Real Exchange Rate.
DOI.
