Key elements of local government transparency in new public governance

Nigerian economy depends on oil as the major source of revenue, failure to diversify the revenue base has raised questions about its sustainability and implication on the economy. This study uses market capitalization, broad money stock, credit to private sector, prime interest rate and deposit liability as proxies for the financial sector, while output in the manufacturing sector and manufacturing employment are used as proxies for manufacturing performance. The study examines the causal effects, shock effect and long-run impact using Granger Non-Causality, Vector Error Correction Model, and Dynamic Ordinary Least Square method, respectively. The results showed unidirectional causality, confirming the hypothesis of the ‘supply-leading view’ and ‘demand-following view’ except for market capitalization and output in the manufacturing sector, where independence was observed. The variance decomposition shows that the forecast error shock of credit to private sector and prime interest rate show more variations in manufacturing sector performance than other financial indicators. The long-run result using output in manufacturing sector as dependent variable shows a positive significant relationship with other financial sector indicators, except for broad money stock and deposit liability. This study recommended credit channel for transmission of monetary policy using interest rate to improve the performance of manufacturing sector, among others.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a meta-analysis of the relationship between determinant factors and tax evasion based on deterrence approach. Using the meta-analysis method, each statistical result of empirical studies is converted into r-pearson as standardized effect size, and then synthesized into a mean effect size in order to increase power and to resolve uncertainty. Theoretically, increasing audit, tax rate and tax penalty will decrease tax evasion. However, the results show that only tax rate has a significant impact on tax evasion. Synthesizing totally 478 outcomes from articles published between 1978 and 2018, there is a robust conclusion that decreasing tax rate is an effective tool in combating tax evasion. On the other hand, audit and penalty are not significant in influencing tax evasion. In addition, the results of heterogeneity analysis suggest that national culture and income level of the country are useful in explaining the impact of audit, tax rate and tax penalty on tax evasion. These findings should be of interest to policymakers. First, instead of sacrificing more resources in conducting audit or imposing more penalty, tax authorities should consider setting the tax rate as low as possible to diminish tax evasion. Second, considering that culture and income level influence the impact of audit and penalty on tax evasion, policymakers should consider national cultural values and income level condition when designing audit techniques and setting penalty structures.

The authors examined environmental responsibility and financial performance nexus of Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s socially responsible investing manufacturing and mining firms during the period of 2008-2014. The study employs annual panel dataset of fourteen manufacturing and mining companies on the index, and Granger causality analysis using Gcause2 Baum’s version. The paper found unidirectional causal relationship between environmental responsibility, measured by emissions intensity and equity returns, and bidirectional causal relationship between emissions intensity and market value of equity deflated by sales at 1% significant levels. Impliedly, improvements in ‘energy efficient technologies’ to reduce fossil energy consumption (prevention activities) seem to exhibit value destroying tendencies, while improvements in ‘end-of-pipe’ activities seem to estimate a drive market value of equity deflated by sales and equity returns. The Pesaran CD and Breusch-Pagan LM tests confirmed existence of cross-sectional dependence amongst panel members. The authors tend to support institutional and stakeholder theories.