An Examination of the Effect of Migrant Remittances on Human Capital Development & Agricultural Productivity in Nigeria: An ARDL Approach

Abstract

This study is an attempt to bridge the academic and policy debates on the migration-development nexus using econometric tools of analysis in measuring the impact of migrant inflows or workers’ remittances on human capital development and agricultural productivity in Nigeria between 1981 to 2016. Data for the study were sourced from the World Bank Development Indicators (WBDI) (2015). Empirical findings from the study are quite instructive. First, the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) unit root test and ARDL Bounds testing revealed evidences of stationarity and long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables in the model. Findings from the ARDL long-run and short-run regression revealed that, migrant remittances have no significant impact on human capital development in Nigeria during the period studied. Furthermore, migrant remittances holds a positive prospect of growth in agricultural productivity for Nigerian households in the long-run, but there appears to be no immediate gains and or benefits from migrant inflows to growth in agricultural productivity in Nigeria in the short-run. It is therefore recommended that Nigerian migrants be encouraged to send more remittances to their relatives / households in order to build-up human capital and increase agricultural productivity which will lead to a reduction in poverty and increase the long term developmental objectives of Nigeria as a nation.