Infrastructure development, environmental quality and economic growth in Nigeria

Abstract

The earth as a planet supports human life, and human activities attract extensive and intensive socioeconomic influence on the environment and the economy. Activities such as infrastructure development exert increasing and diverse concerns on environmental quality and hence on economic growth. While these variables appear interrelated due to many factors, including population growth, urbanization, industrialization, etc., however, the nature of the interrelationship is not largely known, especially in Nigeria. This study therefore investigated and examined their relationship using time-series data between 1990–2019 by adopting the co-integration estimation technique through the bounds test approach of the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) method, using the percentage share of the building and construction sector (BCS) of GDP, carbon dioxide percentage of fuel combustion (CTE), the annual growth rate of agriculture (AFF), the annual population growth rate, the annual GDP growth rate, etc., as variables. The study revealed that infrastructure development and environmental quality explain economic growth and they all have both short- and long-run relationships, while population growth and AFF variables are positively significant to economic growth. The finding evidenced the significance of the relationship and consequently recommended new roles for infrastructure and production processes that consider environmental-quality mindsets to achieve positive outcomes of green economic growth in Nigeria.