Oil Price Shocks and Variations in Macroeconomic Variables in Nigeria

The study was an evaluation of the impact of oil price fluctuations on specific macroeconomic variables in Nigeria for the period, 1981-2017. This was examined to establish the innovations oil price will caused on some selected macroeconomic variables such as government revenue, government expenditure, money supply, inflation, real gross domestic product and unemployment. Using results from impulse responses and variance decompositions from a VAR, the result showed that oil price fluctuations largely accounted for the variations in six out of seven macroeconomic variables namely government revenue (GREV), government expenditure (GEXP), money supply (MS2), real gross domestic product (RGDP) and unemployment (UEMP) while its impact on inflation (INF) was found to be insignificant thus, providing evidence that oil price is not inflationary in an open economy such as Nigeria. The result of the impulse response function (IRF) also revealed that aside from inflation which had a negative response to oil shock, all other six variables such as government revenue, government expenditure, money supply, real gross domestic product and unemployment had a positive significant response to oil shock throughout the 10th quarters.From the empirical investigation, it can be concluded that a combination of fiscal and monetary policies could provide effective instruments for the stabilization of the economy after an oil shock. DOI: 10.7176/JETP/9-5-01 Publication date:June 30th 201

INVESTIGATING THE PREDICTIVE EFFECT OF ADMISSION CRITERIA ON STUDENT ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN NIGERIA: USING A LOGIT MODEL

ABSTRACT This study aims at investigating the effects of and the predictive capability of admission criteria on students' academic performances in higher institutions. For this, data on results and student's demographic characteristics were collected from the department of Economics, FCE Zaria, Nigeria. In order to capture plausible relationships and deterministic effects between the variables used, the study employed the use of a binary dependent model (logit model). The results from the model estimated showed consistency in the adequacy of the current admission criteria. It also espoused the need for emphasis on UME results rather than WASSCE or NECO results which should be interpreted with caution. Demographic characteristics of students showed better performances from students below 22 years old, feminine and are from the southern region of the country. Thus it was recommended that, the current admission criteria should be maintained as it adequately predicts students' academic performances in higher institutions, but caution should be used when interpreting WASSCE and NECO results of students