International Capital Mobility and Saving-Investment Nexus in Nigeria: Revisiting Feldstein-Horioka Hypothesis

Abstract

This paper tests the validity of Feldstein-Horioka (1980) hypothesis using Nigerian data from 1980 to 2013 by relying on the ARDL Bounds testing approach to co-integration and vector error correction model (VECM). Evidence for the hypothesis over the sub-samples is mixed given absence of co-integrating relationship between savings and investment in both periods. Over the period of market-friendly economic reform (1986 -2013) and entire sample period (1980-2013), we found low saving investment correlation indicating support for the F-H hypothesis (that low saving investment relationship implies high degree of international capital mobility). Presumably, the World Bank and IMF designed economic reform programs in form of liberalization and deregulation – coupled with the neo-liberal economic management framework that Nigeria is currently practicing – may have attenuated the saving investment relation in the reform era, thereby providing support for F-H hypothesis over the reform era. But the finding of similar absence of cointegration between saving and investment in the pre-reform era, against the F-H postulate, reveals the importance of incorporating factors such as money supply and inflow of foreign capital that could affect the saving investment relationship as widely suggested in the literature. Overall, we find support for high degree of international capital mobility across Nigerian borders that may lead to unsustainable current account balance for the economy if left unregulated. The policy import of the paper is the need for a more conscientious implementation of a policy of guided deregulation of Nigeria’s capital and trade accounts.