Financial Deepening and the Performance of Manufacturing Firms in Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of financial deepening on the performance of manufacturing firms in Nigeria from 1970 to 2016. The data were sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin and the National Bureau of Statistics. The model was specified, and the hypotheses were tested with the Autoregressive Distributed Lag model and Mann-Whitney U Test test. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller, Phillips-Perron and Breusch-Pagan-Godfrey tests were carried out to ensure robust regression results. Results obtained from the study revealed that broad money supply has direct and significant impact on index of manufacturing production (p-value= 0.0039) in Nigeria, credit to private sector has indirect and insignificant impact on index of manufacturing production (p-value= 0.1167) in Nigeria and market capitalization has an indirect and significant impact on index of manufacturing production (p-value= 0.0051) in the long-run and a direct and insignificant impact (p-value= 0.1596) in the short-run. The study also discovered that financial deepening impacted more on the manufacturing sector performance in the post-financial reforms period. The study therefore recommended that government should launch new financial reforms capable of enhancing the accessibility of manufacturing sector to credit and ensure adequate implementation and monitoring of the existing policies on financial reforms in Nigeria with a view to deepening the Nigerian financial system and thereby promoting manufacturing firms’ performance in Nigeria.