Transnational Trade and Economic Growth in Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the impact of transnational trade on economic growth in Nigeria. To achieve the purpose of the study, transnational trade was disaggregated into: oil import, oil export, non-oil import, non-oil export, trade openness, foreign direct investment share of real gross domestic product and real effective exchange rate and regressed on economic growth proxied by growth rate of real GDP. Data on the variables above were sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria statistical Bulletin and the World Bank database. The data were analysed using the Autoregressive and Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach due to the mixed order of stationarity of the variables. The results indicate that in the short run, non-oil export has positive and significant impact on economic growth while oil import and FDI share of real GDP have negative and significant effect on economic growth. The long run result shows that: oil import has direct and insignificant effect on growth while non-oil import, non-oil export, FDI share of real GDP and real effective exchange rate have negative and insignificant impact on economic growth. From the results the study concludes that transnational trade has serious implication on economic growth in the short run and less effect on economic growth in the long run in Nigeria over the period of this study. Based on these findings, the study suggests that policies should be geared toward increase in non-oil export, reduction in oil import, review of FDI inflow policies and trade liberalization as possible ways of improving the productive capacity of the Nigerian economy.