Testing the Cointegrating Relationship between Foreign Exchange Rate Volatility and Government Health Expenditure

Abstract

This paper examined the relationship between government health care expenditure and foreign exchange rate volatility in Nigeria for the period 1993-2022. We employed the multivariate cointegration technique proposed by Johansen and found the existence of at least one cointegrating vector describing a long run relationship between government health care expenditure and foreign exchange rate volatility. It is therefore suggested that an appreciable proportion of the national budget be allocated to the health care services to have a more robust health care programmes capable of fostering health development in Nigeria. The research was conducted with an objective to understand the dynamics between healthcare expenditures and the volatility in foreign exchange rate with a focus on Nigeria, enabling better policy making. The overall conclusion is that the Nigerian government health expenditure is largely dependent that its healthcare policy is not stable and sufficient is not largely dependent on volatility foreign exchange rate. However, government health expenditure is a concern for Nigeria.