ABSTRACT

The study examined the impact of public expenditure on economic growth of Nigeria for the period 1980-2019.  Data were sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria statistical Bulletin.  Real gross domestic product proxy for economic growth was adopted as the dependent variable while government recurrent expenditure on administration, education, health, economic services, transfers as well as government capital expenditure on social and community services and economic services were the independent variables.  The Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test was employed to test the stationarity of the variables.  The Johansen Co-integration test was also carried ot to test the long-run relationship of the variables.  The result showed that there existed a long-run relationship among the variables in the study.  The Vector error correction model was also adopted in data analysis.  The empirical results showed that recurrent expenditures on administration had a negative and significant impact on economic growth in Nigerian in both the long-run and short-run; recurrent expenditures on education had positive and significant impact on economic growth in the long-run and a positive and insignificant impact on the short-run; recurrent expenditures on health had a positive and significant impact on economic growth in the long-run but a positive and insignificant impact in the short-run; recurrent expenditure on economic services had positive and significant impact on economic growth in the long run and short-run; recurrent expenditures on transfers had positive and significant impact on economic growth in the long-run but a negative and significant impact in the short-run; capital expenditure on social and community services had a negative and significant impact on economic growth in the long-run and short-run and lastly, capital expenditure on economic services had a positive and significant impact on economic growth in` the long-run but a positive and insignificant impact in the short-run.  The study therefore recommended, amongst others, that government should increase its expenditure on administration especially in the area of security and internal defense and utilize them effectively and efficiently in order to improve the enabling environment on which Nigerians carryout their daily activities; government should adequately fund the educational and health sectors of the economy and at the same time ensure effective utilization of funds in these sectors to improve the welfare and productivity of their workforce, thus encouraging growth of the economy.  These measures would adequately enhance economic activities of Nigeria which would in turn, induce growth in the Nigerian economy.