The Demand For Corruption: A Case of Nigeria

The study examines the demand for corruption in Nigeria between 1991 and 2018. While there exist a vast number of literatures on the impact of corruption on several socioeconomic indicators, this study adds to the scanty existing literature on the demand for corruption from the Nigerian perspective. Applying the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) estimation technique, findings show that both in the shortrun and long run, there exist a positive relationship between income levels, income inequality, unemployment rate and the demand for corruption in Nigeria. Also a negative relationship between poverty and the demand for corruption was found to exist both in the short and long run. Notably, income levels was found to significantly influence the demand for corruption in Nigeria both in the short and long run. The implication of the finding suggests that since higher income levels imply higher demand for corruption in Nigeria, government can significantly reduce the demand for corruption by reducing income inequality through wealth redistribution measures

Beneficial Grease Hypothesis of Public Sector Corruption in Economic Development: The Nigerian Experience

The objective of the paper was to empirically investigate the validity of the beneficial grease hypothesis of public sector corruption with particular reference to Nigeria over the period 1981-2012. The study employed a multiple regression Ordinary Least Square methodology and the Johansen framework on secondary data to examine the nature of relationships between public sector corruption and five developmental explanatory variables. The empirical results confirm the existence of cointegration between public sector corruption and the identified variables. The results of causality tests indicate that public sector corruption does not Granger cause Gross Domestic Product and consequently Nigeria’s development. There is bidirectional causality from total expenditure to public sector corruption, while capital expenditure and foreign private investment Granger cause public sector corruption. The estimated regression results indicate that unemployment is positively related to public sector corruption while public sector corruption and GDP are inversely related; there is a strong inverse relationship between public sector corruption and foreign debt; capital expenditure and public sector corruption are positively related. The CUSUM and CUSUMQ results show the constancy of estimated parameters in the study period. The policy implication is that unless and until corruption is stamped out in Nigeria’s public life, promoting the country’s economic development, reducing unemployment and achieving a high standard of living among the people are not likely to be achieved. The conclusion is that the beneficial grease theory is not applicable to Nigeria and public sector corruption must be seriously addressed with the aim of eradicating it. Keywords: Cointegration, Corruption, Economic Development, Poverty, Public Sector

Political Elites’ Corruption, Political Stability and Economic Growth in Nigeria: Bound Testing Approach

This paper investigated the impact of political elites’ corruption and political stability on economic growth in Nigeria using ARDL bound test approach. The study adopts annual time series data for the period of 1996-2017. The stationarity properties of the variables were tested using Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Phillips-Perron (PP) tests. Result from the bound test reveals that corruption exact a negative and significant impact on economic growth both in the short and long run, while political stability exact a positive and significant impact on economic growth in the short run but an insignificant impact in the long run. This finding revealed that political stability which includes stability in government, absence of internal, external and ethnic conflict/tension promote economic growth in Nigeria in the short run while corruption was found to contribute to the Nigerian economy by reducing cumbersome bureaucratic control. In the light of the findings, the paper recommend that political elites’ should be cautioned for desperation of power and common/public interest of the society should supersede individual interest