Investigating the Determinants of Productivity Growth of The Small Scale Garment Industrial Cluster In Aba, Nigeria.

Classical agglomeration theory posits that production is facilitated when there is a clustering of economic activities. Although, the theory failed to explain which of the economic activity will lead to the formation of the cluster, the theory also failed to explain what determines productivity growth in such a cluster. Hence this study investigates the determinants of industrial cluster productivity growth in the production activity using the small scale garment industrial cluster in Aba, Nigeria. This study employed the questionnaire for its data collection from a sample of 300 small scale garment operators in Aba. The Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and simple percentage statistics were used for the analysis. The study found the major determinants of productivity growth of the small scale garment industrial cluster in Aba to include; small market for the products, high competition from imported foreign goods, low quality of products, tax policy, multiplicity of taxes, levies and other rates, and high rate of infrastructural decay. Based on the findings of this study, we recommend that government should prioritize industrial cluster development in its development policies through improving her tax policies. Flexible trade regulations and infrastructural development should be embarked on for industrial sector productivity growth

Impact of Health Sector Reform on Nigeria’s Economic Development: An Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model Approach

This study investigates the impact of health sector reforms on Nigeria’s economic growth from 1970-2013. The method of analysis is the Bound F-Test approach. The result shows that there is a long-run co-integrating relationship existing among the variables of GDP per capita, improved sanitation facilities (LISF), mortality rate under 5 years (LMTU 5) and Out-of-pocket expenditure (LOPE). It also shows that 58% of the total variation in GDP per capita is accounted for by the changes in LHIV/AID, LISF, LMTUS and LOPE. We therefore, recommend a universal policy of healthcare system that will guarantee the populaces’ access to healthcare services. Similarly, there is need to reduce the out-of-pocket expenses, healthcare beneficiaries incur in Nigeria