Infrastructure, sustainability, and policy reform in Nigeria: An empirical study of sectoral contributions to economic growth

This study therefore examined the effect of government expenditure on infrastructural development and its influence on economic growth in Nigeria from 1999-2022. Using secondary data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria, World Development Indicators, and African Infrastructure Development reports, the paper adopts the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to investigate short-, mid-, and long-run relationship between public expenditure and gross domestic product (GDP). Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test results support that the variables are integrated at mixed order of integration, and it validates the use of ARDL framework. The results of the bounds test suggest a strong mutual long-run equilibrium linkage between government spending on infrastructure and economic growth. The empirical findings show that only capital spending is statistically significant and positive for GDP in the short-run but that both health and education recurrent spending are generally either insignificant or negative for growth. The significance and the correct sign of the error correction term is indicating partial speed of adjustment towards long-run equilibrium with 1.5% per annum. Post-estimation diagnostic tests support robustness of the model as no problem in serial correlation, heteroscedasticity and residual normality is indicated. The study concludes that capital spending boosts short-run growth but inefficiency in recurrent outlays restricts its developmental outcomes. Based on the findings, policy recommendations included enhancing the effectiveness and FDI-sectoral composition of government expenditures, mainly through the health and education sector, to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth. The paper then makes suggestions for further research into disaggregated expenditure analysis and governance and public finance outcomes.

This study examines the relationship between infrastructural development and sustainable economic growth in Nigeria from 1999 to 2022. Despite considerable public investment, Nigeria’s economic growth has remained inconsistent, raising concerns about the effectiveness of infrastructure in driving long-term development. Grounded in the New Growth Theory, this research employs the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test for stationarity and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to evaluate both short- and long-run effects of infrastructure on economic performance. The analysis draws on secondary data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin, World Development Indicators, and African Infrastructure Development Reports. Key infrastructure indicators considered include the ICT Development Index, Transport Development Index, Electricity Development Index, and Waste Service System. Findings reveal a long-run equilibrium relationship between infrastructural development and GDP; however, the individual impacts of most infrastructure indices were statistically insignificant in both the short and long term. While the ICT and Waste Service indicators showed positive but weak effects, transport and education infrastructure exhibited negative contributions. The error correction mechanism indicates a moderate pace of adjustment toward equilibrium. The study concludes that existing infrastructural development in Nigeria is inadequate to drive meaningful and sustained economic growth. It recommends more strategic, integrated, and performance-driven infrastructure policies. Future studies should explore regional variations and include environmental and social dimensions to provide a more comprehensive understanding of infrastructure’s role in development.lockchain technology (BCT) has emerged as a transformative tool in food supply chain management (FSCM), offering enhanced transparency, traceability, and trust. This paper critically reviews the application of blockchain in FSCM, synthesizing findings from theoretical and empirical studies to assess its effectiveness in addressing food safety, fraud prevention, and regulatory compliance. The review highlights blockchain's potential to improve transparency and traceability through immutable, decentralized ledgers, enabling real-time tracking of products from farmers to consumers. Case studies, such as IBM Food Trust's collaboration with Walmart, demonstrate significant reductions in traceability time and improved consumer trust. Additionally, blockchain's integration with IoT and big data analytics enhances food safety by enabling real-time monitoring of environmental conditions and automating recall processes, thereby reducing public health risks and economic losses.

This study evaluated the impact of power sector expenditures on economic growth in Nigeria using a time series research design from 1986-2021. Secondary data were used and sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin December 2021. the Autoregressive Distributed Lagged (ARDL) and the Error Correction Model (ECM) were used to determine the relationship and impact of power sector expenditures on economic growth in Nigeria. The ndings found that there is a long-run, short-run and signicant impact on power sector expenditure indicators especially the power sector capital expenditure in Nigeria and power sector recurrent expenditure in Nigeria. This depicts that power sector expenditure is advantageous to economic growth in Nigeria. In other words, the leading drivers of economic growth in Nigeria are power sector capital expenditure in Nigeria and power sector recurrent expenditure in Nigeria. Therefore, the study recommended that the government should increase the power capital and recurrent expenditure through the annual budget in Nigeria to improve the quality and adequate supply of electricity and the level of economic growth and development in Nigeria.

This study analyses the relationship between interest rate, exchange rate and economic growth in Nigeria spanning from 1980-2022. Data for the study were obtained from World Development Indicators. The study undertook unit root test using the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) method. Consequently, based on the outcome of the ADF result, the research used Auto-regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) model to determine the existence of a long-run interactive relationship between interest rate, exchange rate, and economic growth in Nigeria. The Auto-regressive distributive Lag (ARDL) bound test result of the long-run interactive relationship between the variables reported the existence of long-run relationship. The study further revealed that the interaction between real interest rate and exchange rate on growth of gross domestic product is negative, but statistically significant both in the long-run and previous period of the short-run. Similarly, the interaction between lending interest rate and exchange rate is negatively related with growth of gross domestic in the long-run. However, deposit interest rate and exchange rate recounted a positive but insignificant interactive relationship. It has been suggested, among other recommendations, that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), should raise deposit interest rate in order to incentivize individuals to save a greater portion of their income. This will enable financial institutions to enhance their capacity to allocate more cash towards investment, thereby fostering economic growth.

This paper examined the impact of public debt on economic growth in Nigeria from 1990 to 2023. The objectives are to determine the impact of domestic debt, external debt and public debt service payments on gross domestic product (GDP) in Nigeria. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test indicates that the variables are stationary at levels, I(0) and at order one, I(1). The study applied the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to secondary data sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and Debt Management Office (DMO). The ARDL bounds test to cointegration indicates existence of a long-run relationship among the variables which led to estimation of both short-run and long-run results. Findings reveal that domestic debt and external debt made negative and insignificant impact on GDP whereas public debt service payments made positive and significant impact on GDP in both the short-run and the long-run. Control variables of gross fixed capital formation, total labour force participation rate and inflation rate produced mixed results in both periods. This suggests that Nigeria’s reliance on public debt-both domestic and external borrowings has been detrimental to its economic performance, primarily due to mismanagement of borrowed funds. The paper recommends that public debt should be productively utilized, there should be reforms in debt management to ensure efficient allocation of borrowed funds to productive sectors, and a reduction in reliance on external financing to achieve sustainable economic growth and development.

This study investigated the effects of restructuring industrial sector on economic growth in Nigeria. The study sets to examine the effect of the manufacturing on economic growth in Nigeria, examine the impact of crude petroleum and natural gas on economic growth in Nigeria and investigate the effect of solid mineral mining on economic growth in Nigeria. The study adopted both primary and secondary source of data. The study employed Error Correction Model (ECM) and Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model for hypothesis testing. The findings of the study showed that Manufacturing (LnMAN) had a significant positive effect on economic growth in Nigeria. Crude petroleum and natural gas (LnCPN) had positive and significant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. Solid mineral mining (LnSMM) had an insignificant positive impact on economic growth in Nigeria. Therefore, the study concluded that restructuring industrial sector, if properly and adequately implemented, would certainly propel and facilitate economic growth, development and unity in Nigeria with positive multiplier effect on West African states and Africa as a whole. Hence, recommended that there is need for the government to develop stimulants for the manufacturing sector and manufacturers in form of tax incentives and credit facilities. A good road network to mining sites and a sufficient power supply will go a long way to boost the productivity of the sector. Government should encourage the production of more agricultural products that could be used as raw materials by manufacturing industries to achieve balanced growth between the agricultural and the manufacturing industries of the Nigerian economy.

This study examined the relationship between exchange rate and economic growth in Nigeria between 1981 and 2020. The specific objectives are to determine the effects of exchange rate, inflation and interest rate on gross domestic product (GDP). The data on the variables were obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin and World Development Indicators, and analyzed using descriptive statistics, unit root as well as bounds cointegration tests and ARDL model. The unit root test results showed that the variables are mixed integrated. While inflation is stationary at levels, the other variables in the model were stationary at first difference. The bounds cointegration test showed that long run relationship exists between GDP growth and the underlying explanatory variables. The findings showed that exchange rate and inflation negatively impacted on economic growth. This finding indicates that increase in exchange rate and price level is detrimental to the growth of the Nigerian economy. There is evidence of a significant positive effect of interest rate on GDP growth. This finding explains the reality in Nigeria, where businesses and households tend to borrow even as interest rate increases, but tend to cut corners by reducing the quality of their products and services or pass-on the increased costs of borrowing to consumers by increasing prices. Given the findings, this study recommends amongst others that the federal government through the CBN should ensure that exchange rate policy should is consistent to provide opportunity for a realistic and stable exchange rate capable of driving economic growth in Nigeria.

<p>The study examined the relationship between tax revenue and economic growth in Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive and historical research design; secondary data for twenty-two years (1994 -2015) were collected from various issues of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) statistical bulletin and annual reports. Tax revenue as an independent variable was measured with Value Added Tax (VAT); Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT); Company Income Tax (CIT) and Custom and Excise Duties (CED) while the dependent variable was Economic Growth (EG) proxied by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Analysis was performed on data collected using Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Regression and other post estimations (Jarque-Bera test; Breusch-Godfrey LM and Ramsey Reset Test) to determine the existence of relationship between the variables. The results of the study showed that VAT and CED had a significant relationships with economic growth (p<0.05), while CIT has negative significant relationship with economic growth (P<0.05). However, PPT had no significant relationship with economic growth. The study concluded that the role of taxation in nation’s building is irreplaceable. Taxation remains a strong socio political and economic tool for economic prosperity. It is therefore recommended that government should engage in a complete re-organization of tax administrative machinery to reduce incidence of tax evasion and avoidance to the barest minimum in order to improve tax revenue and bring more people and establishments into the tax net. Also, tax revenue should be judiciously utilized to provide enabling environment for business survival and economic growth in Nigeria.</p>

The yearly budgetary allocation on subsidy in Nigeria has remained a concern for policymakers and other agents of the economy as to whether it has achieved the targeted goal of economic growth in Nigeria. Thus, this study examined the impact fuel subsidy payments had on economic growth in Nigeria from 2005 to 2023. Secondary data were sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bullentin, the World Bank World Development Indicator (WDI) and the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) working paper. The data were converted into quarterly data for ease of analysis and estimation. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate was used as the dependent variable while Fuel Subsidy Expenditure (FSE), Exchange Rate (EXC) and Inflation Rate (INF) were the independent variables. The long run relationship among the variables was confirmed using the Johansen Co-integration technique while the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) technique of analysis was adopted for estimation of the data. The study found that a negative significant relationship exists between fuel subsidy expenditure and economic growth in Nigeria within the period under study. The study therefore recommends a re-direction of government expenditure on subsidy to other critical area of the economy that can propel the growth of the economy.

This paper examines the impact of government expenditure on the Nigerian economy for the period 1983 - 2012. The government expenditure components used as the explanatory variables in the model are: expenditures on Health, Education, Defense, Agriculture and Transportation and Communication. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was used as a parameter for measuring economic growth. In order to establish the link between Government expenditure and economic growth in Nigeria, secondary data were collected from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) statistical bulletin. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (Stationarity) unit root test revealed that there is no unit root in the variables. The Johansen cointegration test result confirms that a long run relationship exists between the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and government expenditure on Health, Education, Defense, Agriculture and Transportation and Communication. The pairwise granger causality test reveals that dual causalities exists between Government expenditure on health and the GDP, expenditure on education and GDP, expenditure on Agriculture and GDP and expenditure on Transport and Communication and GDP while the Gross Domestic Product causes Defense expenditure. This study concludes that a significant relationship exists between government expenditure and the Gross Domestic Product. It recommends strict monitoring of the expenditure on defense and the provision of modern equipments for the navy, the army and the air force as this would help in fighting the increasing rate of insurgency in the North. There is also need for the increased funding to these critical sectors of the economy in order to facilitate economic growth and the attainment of the millennium development goals.

This study investigated the relationship between human capital development and economic growth in Nigeria for the period of 1981-2017. Annual time series data from various issues of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) statistical bulletin and World Development Indicator (WDI) were collected for the dependent variable - gross domestic product per capita (the proxy for economic growth) and the independent variables - human development index (HDI), number of under-five deaths (NUFD), gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), labour force participation (LABF), remittance (REM) and inflation rate (INF). The Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Dickey Fuller Generalized Least Squares (DF-GLS) detrending test were used to test for unit root while the Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) or the bound testing approach was employed in the study. The result showed that human capital development (HDI), labour force participation (LABF) and remittance (REM) had direct and significant long run impact on economic growth while the short-run estimated model revealed that the one-lagged value of gross domestic product (RGDP) and HDI had direct and significant impact on the dependent variable. The error correction term showed that in event of a disequilibrium, shock or perturbation, the system would restore itself to equilibrium at an adjustment speed of approximately 97.1%. To increase Nigeria’s human development index (HDI), it was recommended that remittances from international agencies should not only used judiciously by the government for the development of human capital. This would not only increase creativity, skill and productive capacities but also promote economic growth in Nigeria.

The study examined the impact of monetary policy on economic growth in Nigeria, using annual data spanning the period 1985 to 2022. One of the major objectives of monetary policy in Nigeria is economic growth but despite the various monetary efforts that have been adopted by the Central Bank of Nigeria over the years, inflation remains a major threat to Nigeria's economic growth. Despite the increased focus on monetary policy adoption in Nigeria, the country's economic growth remains an issue. High unemployment, low investment, high inflation, and an unstable foreign exchange rate are examples of such issues. These alleged issues are said to have contributed to Nigeria's rapid drop in economic growth. The objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between economic growth, exchange rate, inflation rate, interest rate, and money supply in Nigeria. In this regard, the study employed the Autoregressive-Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach and established a long-run relationship between economic growth and interest rate, inflation, exchange rate, and money supply. Specifically, the findings suggested that in the long run only interest rate has significant effects on economic growth while exchange rate, money supply, and interest rate have a positive relationship with the dependent variable, it was only the inflation rate that has a negative relationship with economic growth in Nigeria. Given the important role of interest rates in promoting economic growth, the study recommends that a significant decrease in interest rates will lead to an increase in the growth of the economy as the reduced interest rate will serve as bait for investors in the Nigerian economy.

This study investigates the impact of agriculture, industry, and the service sector on Nigeria's economic growth from 1990 to 2022, using data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin. Employing an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model, the research explores the contributions of these key sectors to Nigeria's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The findings reveal that the industrial sector has a significant positive effect on GDP, emphasizing its crucial role in driving economic growth. The agricultural sector also contributes positively, though its impact is relatively modest, highlighting the need for modernization and investment to enhance productivity. Surprisingly, the service sector shows a statistically significant negative impact on GDP, contrary to its traditionally recognized role in economic expansion. This anomaly suggests underlying structural issues within the sector that require further investigation. The study's model explains approximately 59.65% of the variation in GDP, with no significant evidence of autocorrelation, heteroskedasticity, or multicollinearity affecting the results. Based on these findings, the study recommends targeted policy interventions to improve agricultural productivity, strengthen industrialization efforts, and reform the service sector to foster balanced and sustainable economic growth in Nigeria.

This study examined the interaction of oil revenue and institutional quality on economic growth in Nigeria over the period of 1993 - 2022. The World Development Indicator (WDI) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) statistical bulletin were the sources of the annual time series data used in this study. Employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) estimation technique, findings reveal that oil revenue impacts economic growth positively in the short-run but negatively in the long run, while institutional quality exhibits positive impact in both the short-run and long-run period. It was also discovered that the interaction of oil revenue and economic growth could enhance economic growth in Nigerian both in the short-run and long-run period. Access to clean fuels and technologies contributes positively to economic growth in both short-run and long-run period, while fiscal policy rating only has statistically significant positive association with economic growth in Nigeria over the observed period. This study therefore recommends the need to strengthen political institutions for effective utilization of oil revenue, and implementation of strategic diversification policies for the development of other sectors in the economy for economic prosperity in Nigeria.

This study examined external borrowing and economic growth in Nigeria covering the period 1981 – 2019. The main objective of the study is to ascertain the impact of external borrowing on economic growth in Nigeria. Times series data on GDP, external debt, exchange rate, external debt servicing payments and inflation were extracted from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) statistical bulletin 2018 was used for the study. The method of data analysis and evaluation were the unit-root test which was used to ascertain the stationary status of the variables, the linear regression with the application of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) technique and the Granger causality analysis. The major findings of the study are that all the variables are stationary at first difference I(1), external debt has a negative and insignificant relationship with economic growth in Nigeria ( = -0004912, p-value = 0.6944 > 0.05) and there is no causality relationship existing between external debt and economic growth in Nigeria. The study therefore recommends that the federal government should acquire external debt largely for economic reasons rather than social or political reasons. This would increase the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the nation.