The Impact of the New Issues Market on Agricultural Productivity in Nigeria

The growth of the agricultural sector in Nigeria has remained a major problem in spite of policies put in place by government to provide the sector with varying windows of investible funds, a major one of which is the capital market. Listed firms in capital market have opportunities to raise fund for investment. Agricultural productivity can be enhanced if sufficient funds can be accessed through primary market window of the Nigeria capital market. It is against the forgoing that this study seeks to examine the impact of the new issues market on agricultural productivity in Nigeria from 1990 to 2009. The study adopted the two variable model and the results reveals that the new issue market had positive and significant impact on agricultural output productivity in Nigeria. The study thus recommends relaxation of stringent conditionalities observed in accessing fund from the capital market should be relaxed especially for agricultural firms. This will encourage firms to tap from the opportunities in the capital market to increase productivity and output. Keywords: New issues market, Agricultural productivity, Nigerian Econom

Stock Market and Economic Growth in Nigeria: Evidence from the Demand-Following Hypothesis

The capital market connects the financial sector with other non-financial sectors of the economy and, in the process, facilitates growth and economic development. Literature abound on the impact of stock market on economic growth however, little literature are available from the demand-following hypothesis which claims that it is the growth of the economy that causes increased demand for financial services which, in turn, leads to the development of financial markets. It is against this background that we examined the impact of stock market development on economic growth from the demand-following arguments from the period 1996-2010. Employing the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression, we found that economic growth has positive and non-significant impact on market capitalization ratio and turnover ratio of the Nigerian stock exchange but had a negative on the Nigerian stock market value traded ratio. Our study thus recommends an increased effort by the Nigerian government to grow the economy through rapid industrialization, provision of basic amenities such as electricity, roads, dams etc as this will in turn lead to the development of the financial sector.   Keywords: Stock Market. Economic Growth, Demand-Following Hypothesi