Robert Becker Pickson

Sichuan Agricultural University · College of Economics and Management

Extreme climate change is posing an increasing threat to human welfare across countries. Specifically, the devastating floods coupled with the looming spectre of drought are argued to explain cross-country differences in food security. While the debate continues and uncertainties about the precise influence of climate change on food security linger...

This study assessed smallholder farmers’ perceptions, adaptation constraints, and determinants of adaptive capacity to climate change. The study used severity and problem confrontation index estimations to examine the farmers’ perceptions of climate warming and barriers to climate adaptation. The results indicated that the farmers were cognizant of...

This study examined the effects of climate change on rice production in 30 Chinese provinces spanning 1998–2017. The study used the pooled mean group technique to capture the long-run and short-run effects of changing climatic conditions on rice production. It further employed the Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel causality test to examine the path of causal...

This study sought to investigate the impacts of climate change on cereal production in China over the period 1990Q1–2013Q4. Using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach, the results showed that CO2 emissions, average temperature, and temperature variability have a significant negative impact on cereal production in the long run. However...

The validity of the Ricardian equivalence proposition remains disputed in spite of the numerous empirical studies. This study utilized panel ARDL estimation approach to investigate the evidence of Ricardian Equivalence Hypothesis in five Sub-Sahara African countries, namely Botswana, Ghana, Gambia, Nigeria, and Kenya over the period of 1981~2014. T...

The agricultural sector is a crucial driver for sustainable development in many countries , as it directly or indirectly contributes to various United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. However, this sector requires increasing financial investment to rejuvenate and modernise production processes. This study investigates the impact of private se...

This study advances the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically focusing on Goal 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) and Goal 13 (Climate Action). This study uses novel analytical techniques that consider cross-sectional dependencies, intra-cluster correlation, endogeneity, and parameter heterogeneity to explore the relationship betwe...

Climate change is a confounding factor that affects food security in several ways. Although the analyses of earlier studies in this area were largely non-technical, new analytical techniques have been developed to comprehensively evaluate climate change patterns and their implications for food security. In this study, we use recent developments in...

The Nigerian government is committed to sustaining rice production to meet national demand. Nevertheless, political tension and climate-induced stressors remain crucial constraints in achieving policy targets. This study examines whether climate change and political instability significantly threaten rice production in Nigeria. First, we employed n...

Among other cultivated crops, rice is the most sensitive to climate variability over its growing season. As such, over-reliance on climate conditions for rice farming calls for a wide range of strategies critical to curtailing the adverse impact of climate change on rice production. Notwithstanding, there remain considerable gaps in our knowledge o...

The past few decades of extreme drought and flooding caused by changing climate conditions have significantly affected agricultural production globally. This study focuses on two vital crops in China—maize and rice—and provides a comprehensive analysis of how these crops are affected by climate change-induced factors over the periods 1978Q1–2015Q4....

Stock market activities assume a crucial role in determining the level of economic activities in both developing and developed economies, by effectively facilitating capital for investment, providing a proper stage to incite best corporate practices that will bring about growing investment and hence leading to a rise in the growth rate of the econo...

The reaction of growth to trade liberalization has varied considerably across countries, with most countries gaining, but others being adversely affected by trade liberalization. Therefore, this study sought to examine the relationship between trade liberalization and economic growth in Ghana. The study used annual time series data covering the per...

Ensuring food security is an important for economic development and social stability. Pakistan’s economy is primarily dominated by agriculture sector. This paper employed the ARDL approach to cointegration in order to investigate the short and long-run determinants of grain crops productivity in Pakistan over the period 1978 to 2016. The results of...

p> Background: One of the most pressing phases for all economic agents is post-retirement standard of living. Irrespective of the higher returns on pension contribution and varied pension reforms, there are possible factors that can render these pension benefits inadequate, which can affect the longevity of retirees. Studies conducted in other coun...

Some West African countries have extensive access to natural resources and rely heavily on revenues from the export of these primary commodities. The heavy dependence of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire on revenues from the exportation of cocoa raises the possibility that these economies are vulnerable to external commodity price fluctuations. This paper se...

Achieving price stability has been in the orbit of concern of state authorities for time immemorial. This paper is therefore focused on determining empirically the impact of public wage bill on inflation in Ghana for the period of 1986-2014. Using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) to cointegration model, it was discovered from the study that...

Continuous depreciation of the cedi has been in the orbit of concern of policy makers for time immemorial. This is because, in spite of many policy actions to restore the continuous depreciation of the cedi amidst wage hikes and inflation, the efforts of policy makers seem to thwart in vain. The ARDL method was empirically used to determine whether...

Although the finance-growth relationship has been looked at in many African countries such as Ghana, the outcomes have been mixed while the causal direction between the two variables has particularly not been examined. This study, therefore, applied ARDL approach and Granger causality test to investigating the relationship and the causal direction...

The wide range of controversies surrounding the direction of causality between savings and economic growth necessitated this study. The study was intended to investigate the relationship between gross domestic savings and economic growth in Ghana; with the specific objective of finding whether there exists a long run relationship between them, and...

This study examined the effect of fiscal policy on economic growth in Ghana. The fiscal variables considered in the study included, government consumption expenditure, government investment expenditure, government transfer payments and taxes revenue. Annual data covering the period of 1983 to 2012 were collected and interpolated into quarterly seri...

With the increasing rate of default of loans in the country, this study assessed the macroeconomic factors that influence loan performance of commercial banks in Ghana using HFC bank as a case study. The sample period used for the study was based on a quarterly data from 2008 to 2015. Using the ARDL bounds test of co-integration as an estimation te...

With the increasing rate of default of loans in the country, this study assessed the macroeconomic factors that influence loan performance of commercial banks in Ghana using HFC bank as a case study. The sample period used for the study was based on a quarterly data from 2008 to 2015. Using the ARDL bounds test of co-integration as an estimation te...

The default rate of loan in the country has been on the increase and worrying to all in recent times. This study assessed the effect of bank specific factors on the loan performance in HFC Bank in Ghana. The sample period used for the study was based on a quarterly data from 2008 to 2015. The study employed the ARDL bounds test of co-integration as...

This study used ARDL model coupled with granger causality test to investigate the relationship between stock market development and economic growth in Ghana for the period from 1991 to 2011. The study revealed that stock market development has a negative impact on economic growth in the long-run and this was confirmed by the causality test that the...

This study employs both ARDL model and Granger causality test to examine and test the direction of causality between government investment expenditure and private investment in Ghana for the period 1970 to 2013. The study revealsthat, in both long run and short run, government investment expenditure has an insignificant negative impact on private i...

The conscious attempt to ascertain the wide range of macroeconomic factors that drive industrial production in Ghana necessitated this study. The main purpose of this study is to ascertain the impact that macroeconomic factors have on industrial performance in Ghana over the period 1980 to 2013. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model was employed...