Nigerian Growth Model: Lessons from China

Abstract

China has experienced rapid economic growth since 1977 when the country begins its reform. Before this time, the growth in Nigeria was above that of China; but the country has surpassed Nigeria since early 1980s as it has a constant and steady growth since then. The Nigerian economic growth kept fluctuating. The paper investigated therefore, the trend in the economic growth of both countries and tries to investigate the factors that lead to such economic growth in China so as to apply it to the Nigerian economy. Both descriptive and inferential statistics are used to investigate this. It was revealed that the Chinese reforms that started in 1977 has led to the stability in the growth rate of the country. The trend showed that the growth in China is driven by export and foreign investment. An investigation of these variables on economic growth in Nigeria has shown that, export had positive but not significant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. Investments on the other hand had positive and significant impact on economic growth. The public expenditure also had positive and significant impact on economic growth. It is recommended that the export base should be diversified to have advantage of export driven growth. Key words: Economic growth model; Export; Investment; Public expenditure; Reforms