GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH OF NIGERIA (2011 – 2020)

Abstract

The study examined the effect of government expenditure on economic growth of Nigeria. The objectives of the study are to ascertain the effect of government expenditure on education and agriculture on economic growth in Nigeria. This study employed ex-post facto design; Secondary data was used for the study. Data for the analysis were extracted from annual time series of the selected relevant macroeconomic variables from 2011 to 2020. Data for government expenditure on education and agriculture were used as government expenditure variable while gross domestic product was used as economic growth variable. The study applied linear regression analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the aid of SPSS 20.0 software for the panel data in order to determine the relationship between the variables. The study revealed that government expenditure on education has significant positive effect on Nigeria economic growth while government spending on agriculture does not significantly affect economic growth in Nigeria. The study recommends, that Government should increase funds allocated to education because it has positive significant effect on economic growth, which will raise income in the long run and would surge an improvement in the well-being of the citizenry. Furthermore, on recommendation, the government should ensure that money that is meant for farmers are disbursed to farmers, monitored to facilitate the use of the budgeted money for agriculture to enable the sector contribute positively and significantly to economic growth and also provide more funding in the agricultural sector, raise its productivity and increase its contribution to economic growth in Nigeria.