IOSR-JEF   Volume-5 ~ Issue-3

Abstract: Poverty is a reflection of food insecurity. It has pursued mankind since times immemorial. The world is experienced with the consequences of poverty. It is the governments' responsibility to mitigate poverty through providing food security. Hence, the central and state governments in India have launched many poverty alleviating programmes

Abstract: This study aimed at empirically exploring the triangle of relationships – finance-inflation-growth – with the broader data sets (1970 - 2012) to see whether a direct effect of inflation on growth can be identified as well as an indirect effect through financial sector development. Italso seeks toexplore the relative strength of the variables in affecting economicgrowth using the variance decompositions (VDCs) and the impulse-response functions (IRFs) based on the structural vector autoregression(VAR) framework. We found that both Engel - Granger and Johansen cointegration test suggest that the variables are cointegrated. Based on the existence of cointegration relationship among the variables, we therefore estimate the long-run relationships using the Stock-Watson's dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) model. The results of DOLS model give an indication that inflation effect on growth is independent of financial development while the financial development effect on growth is dependent of inflation. Furthermore, we also found no evidence of short run causality between RGDP and INF; and there is existence of short run interaction between RGDP and FD that is a bi-directional causality between the variables. Variance decompositions (VDCs) results revealed the variations in the economic growth in Nigeria respond more to shocks in trade openness and next government spending, however, the variations in the economic growth rely more on its own innovations. The policy implication of this finding is for policy makers to develop strategy that will holistic reforms in the financial system and enhance stock market development along side with banking financial institutions. Finally, since financial development effect on growth is dependent of inflation, policy that will ensure price stability will promote output further.

Keywords: Inflation, Financial Development, Output Growth, VECM JEL Classifications: D53, E31, G29

Abstract: A common phenomenon in the financial reports of Nigerian pharmaceutical companies is the volume of short-term and long-term liabilities that forms a considerable size of their capital structure. Explaining the role of financial leverage in companies' financial performance is one of the primary objectives of contemporary researches and this role remains a questionable subject which has continued to attract the attention of many researchers. The main objective of this study is to determine the effect of financial leverage on financial performance of the Nigeria pharmaceutical companies over a period of twelve (12) years (2001 – 2012) for the three (3) selected companies. This work employed three (3) financial leverage for the independent variables such as: debt ratio (DR); debt-equity ratio (DER) and interest coverage ratio (ICR) in determining their effect on financial performance for Return on Assets (ROA) as dependent variable. The ex-post facto research design was used for this study. The secondary data were obtained from the financial statement (Comprehensive income statement and Statement of financial position) of the selected pharmaceutical companies' quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and regressions were employed and used for this study.

Keywords: Financial performance, Financial leverage, Pharmaceutical industry, Descriptive research, Multiple regressions, Debt ratio, Debt-equity ratio, Interest coverage ratio, Return on Assets, SPSS and Financial Statement