Abstract
This study examined the roles of human capital development, energy consumption and crude oil exports in driving sustainable development goal eight (8)-sustainable economic growth in Nigeria. To achieve this, the authors utilized annual data from 1990 to 2018 which were sourced from World Data Atlas, International Energy Agency, WDI and the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin respectively. Autoregressive Distributed Lag technique of estimation was adopted for the data analysis. Consequently, the principal findings of this research work could be presented as follows; electricity power consumption and growth rate of the real GDP has an insignificant positive relationship with each other. The implication of this is that energy consumption in Nigeria has an inadequate capacity to drive a sustainable economic growth in the country. Similarly, oil exports have a significant positive relationship with the growth rate of the real GDP. This means that economic growth sustainability of Nigeria is highly dependent on oil exports. Conversely, government expenditure on education sector has a significant negative relationship with the growth rate of the real GDP. Also, expenditure of government on health sector has a negative but insignificant relationship with the growth rate of the real GDP. This implies that human capital development in Nigeria lack the capacity to ensure a sustainable economic growth. In view of the above, this study makes the following recommendations for the policymakers in Nigeria and by extension developing countries, any time the goal of these policymakers are sustainable economic growth, the development of human capital through adequate funding of educational and health sectors should be embarked upon. In the same vein, the policymakers should provide uninterrupted electricity supply for enhancement of maximum outputs in the country.
Highlights
The quest to create economic prosperity and protect environment in the world, especially in developing economies led to the introduction of the agenda 2030- the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations (United Nations, 2015)
This study has examined the roles of human capital development, energy consumption and crude oil exports in driving one of the key goals of sustainable development-sustainable economic growth in Nigeria
The findings of this research work could presented as follows; growth rate of the real GDP in the previous period has a negative and significant relationship with its value in the current period. This means that past economic growth rate has a negative implication for future economic growth rate in Nigeria
Summary
The quest to create economic prosperity and protect environment in the world, especially in developing economies led to the introduction of the agenda 2030- the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations (United Nations, 2015). It is worth noting that the past empirical studies have been silenced regarding the influence of both human capital development and energy consumption using electricity consumption and crude oil exports on the sustainable development goal 8- sustainable economic growth in Nigeria. Few of the recent studies which focused on the nexus between energy consumption, human capital development and other macroeconomic variables in Nigeria have failed to explore sustainable economic growth and oil exports as principal variables in their methodologies. As a departure from the existing bodies of knowledge, this study has been designed to examine the impact of human capital development and energy consumption on SDGs goal 8 – Sustainable Economic Growth in Nigeria in which past studies have not fully explored in the country. Analysis of data, summary of results and the policy implications of the study
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