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The relationship between terrorism and foreign direct investment (FDI) has stimulated research curiosity given its effects on lives lost, injuries, property damaged, and the psychological aftereffects, which to a very large extent impact economic growth and development. The realization of the magnitude of its influence on bilateral economic ties engineered the study, which examined the impact of terrorism on FDI in Nigeria. The data for this study were sourced from Global Terrorism Index (GTI), Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) database, International Country Risk Guide (ICRG)’s Quality of Governance (QoG) database, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Bulletin, and World Bank Development Indicators (WDI) using autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach as described by Pesaran et al. (2001). From the results obtained, military expenditure, episode(s) of ethnic violence, and terrorist attacks have all been noted to have negative and significant impacts on FDI in Nigeria. The implication is that the reduction in FDI observed in the data is attributed to terrorism. Therefore, governments should overhaul the security apparatus so as to quell the menace of terrorists. This will go a long way to create a conducive environment for FDI to thrive, which will create more jobs for the growth and development of the Nigerian economy.

Education and knowledge have become the prerequisites for the growth and development of any economy or region. Knowledge is a liberator of individuals and societies from human poverty and is a precondition for rapid advancement in today's global knowledge economy (KE). Any nation or region which does not key into the global KE trend may find it very difficult to catch up and become competitive in the global market so as to benefit from the power of knowledge. The objective of this chapter is to investigate whether knowledge and human capital have contributed to the growth of sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Out of the four pillars of KE – the economic and institutional regime (including governance), education and human resources, the innovation system, and information infrastructure – this study focused on education and human capital in the estimation of how knowledge has contributed to growth of SSA countries. The data for the study were sourced from World Development Indicators published by The World Bank Group. Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model was applied and the results show that knowledge variables have a significant impact on economic growth of SSA countries. It is therefore recommended that welfare and working conditions of the labor force be improved so as to be more productive; SSA countries should key into the KE policies so as to be competitive in the production, use, dissemination and transfer of knowledge, ICT, and science.

The greatest challenge facing most economies today is how to grow their economies and reduce over-dependence on imports in the midst of increasing integration of world economies. Addressing this challenge seems to be difficult despite all efforts by policymakers at different times to salvage the situation, the problem persists as evident in the global financial crisis of 2008 and the Eurozone crisis of 2012 which were generally viewed as a glaring illustration of limitless pursuit of economic integration and governance failure at the expense of carefulness, prudence, due diligence, and regulation. It also reflects the lack of proper coordination and lack of proper economic integration facing most emerging market economies of the world. Against this background, this study focuses on the reexamination of the impact of trade openness (TOP) and financial openness (FOP) on economic growth in emerging market economies. The direct and interaction effect of the both openness variables on economic growth in these markets is investigated using data from 2000 to 2017 adopted from World Development indicators of the World Bank. Over 30 emerging market economies covering Asia, Latin America, and Europe are included in the study. For empirical analysis, the study uses one measure of FOP: de facto (total capital flow) variables following Aizenman and Noy (2009) and a measure of TOP as total trade–GDP ratio. The study applies the Dynamic Panel Approach, that is, the Arellano–Bond GMM estimation technique and Granger Causality Test to address the objectives. The results of this study show that TOP has a positive and significant impact on all the countries studied, whereas FOP has positive but no significant impact on economic growth of these countries, implying that these countries have not harnessed the benefit of financial liberalization and integration. It is recommended that the emerging market economies should open not only their economies to trade but also open their economies to finance so as to reap the benefits of FOP and integration.