MODERN AGRICULTURE AND EMPLOYMENT GROWTH IN NIGERIA

Nigeria is blessed with abundant land resources, its agricultural land, has been increasing which means it has a higher advantage in boosting agricultural productivity and employment growth in the economy, but this potential is not being realized. This study is aimed at examining the impact modern agriculture on employment growth in Nigeria. The methodology adopted for the study is the Recursive Ordinary Least Square estimation method. The variables used in the model are: Foreign Direct Investment, Export, Export Price Index, Agricultural Value Added per Worker, Agricultural Output, Agricultural Machineries & Tractor, Agricultural Credit, Inflation Rate, Exchange Rate, Government Expenditure on Education and Employment Rate. Using time series data spanning from 1980 to 2014, the result shows; a significant and positive relationship between agricultural productivity growth and modern agriculture, a significant and negative relationship between export price index and agricultural productivity growth, a significant and positive relationship between export and investment, a significant and positive relationship between investment and employment growth. Based on the findings, the author suggests that government should pursue a balanced growth of both agricultural sector and industrial sector in order to ensure both forward and backward linkages between the two sectors for the overall development of Nigerian econom

Human Capital and Energy Infrastructure: Implications for Economic Growth in Nigeria

Both hypothetical and empirical evidences have found the roles that human capital and energy infrastructure in spurring the economic growth of a nation as very germane. These key variables are undoubtedly working together in a quest to achieve equitable redistribution of the nation’s economic resource and ensuring poverty reduction. This study is based on an attempt to use co-integration and ARDL modeling framework to examine the empirical evidence of the impact of the different components of human capital and energy infrastructure on economic growth in Nigeria between 1981 and 2018. Findings from the study showed that the quality of educational, transportation and communication facilities had a significant and contemporary influence on economic development. In the same way, investment in physical resources calculated by gross fixed capital development, quality of healthcare facilities, availability of power supply were also found to have a positive impact with a lag effect on economic growth. Implicitly, an increase in these facilities over the past decade in terms of their availability and efficiency would boost economic development over the current period. The study therefore recommended that education and health should be given an unwavering focus on investment by the policy maker as components of human capital coupled with energy infrastructure if the desired growth for which Nigeria aspires is to be attaine

Oil Price Shock and Agricultural Productivity: Stylised Evidence in Nigeria

ABSTRACTThe oil sector is dominant, as it is the largest exported commodity in Nigeria. However, evidence has shown that Nigeria, as an oil-dependent country, faces frequent oil price fluctuations that have posed greater challenges to Nigeria’s agriculture sector, hence affecting agricultural productivity. This necessitates the need to investigate the effect of oil price shocks on agricultural productivity in Nigeria. This study adopted the Hodrick Prescott data filtering approach to check for the fluctuation of oil prices. The result revealed fluctuation in Nigeria oil price from 2018 up until recently. The long-run relationship was established using the SVAR and the normalised equation. The result revealed a negative relationship between agricultural productivity, oil price and real exchange rate. While a positive relationship exist between agricultural productivity, consumer price index and oil production. oil price fluctuations affect most of the variables, however, oil price shock shows more variations across the time for agricultural productivity. To this end, this study revealed that oil price shock has an adverse effect on Nigeria’s productivity in agricultural sector. Hence, the government needs to implement a policy and programmes that will serve as oil price shock absorbers in order to sustain agricultural productivit

Oil Price Shock and Agricultural Productivity: Stylised Evidence in Nigeria

The oil sector is dominant, as it is the largest exported commodity in Nigeria. However, evidence has shown that Nigeria, as an oil-dependent country, faces frequent oil price fluctuations that have posed greater challenges to Nigeria’s agriculture sector, hence affecting agricultural productivity. This necessitates the need to investigate the effect of oil price shocks on agricultural productivity in Nigeria. This study adopted the Hodrick Prescott data filtering approach to check for the fluctuation of oil prices. The result revealed fluctuation in Nigeria oil price from 2018 up until recently. The long-run relationship was established using the SVAR and the normalised equation. The result revealed a negative relationship between agricultural productivity, oil price and real exchange rate. While a positive relationship exist between agricultural productivity, consumer price index and oil production. oil price fluctuations affect most of the variables, however, oil price shock shows more variations across the time for agricultural productivity. To this end, this study revealed that oil price shock has an adverse effect on Nigeria’s productivity in agricultural sector. Hence, the government needs to implement a policy and programmes that will serve as oil price shock absorbers in order to sustain agricultural productivit

HUMAN CAPITAL CHANNELS AND PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM NIGERIA

ABSTRACT. Numerous studies have examined the relationship between human capital and productivity. However, the implications of human capital channels - the ‘basic channel’ and ‘advanced channel’ - were discounted from most of the empirical studies in Africa. This study, therefore, uses Vector Error Correction Model to examine the joint short- and long-run causality, as well as long-run behaviour of human capital channels on productivity within the period from 1980 to 2017. Evidence from the joint short- and long-run causality shows that there is no long-run one while joint short-run causality was observed in the basic channel, in the advanced channel there is both joint short- and long-run causality. For the long-run equation, primary school enrollment/secondary school enrollments have insignificant effect on productivity growth while tertiary institution enrollment and government expenditure on education have a positive effect on productivity growth. However, contribution of both effects is less than one per cent, thus showing low responsiveness of the inputs on productivity. The implications from this result are that human capital formation through education and investment in research and development have not promoted productivity in Nigeria. Investment in research and development is imperative to promote productivity and enhance the skills needed to adapt and diffuse new technologies

MPLICATIONS OF HUMAN CAPITAL FORMATION ON OUTPUT AND EMPLOYMENT: EVIDENCE FROM NIGERIA

Many studies have documented that human capital formation is important to boost output both empirically and theoretically. However, studies on the implications of human capital on employment are still scanty, especially for developing countries. Against this background, the study investigates the shock and long-run implications of government financing on education and health on output and employment in Nigeria using a vector error correction model (VECM). The results show that the forecasting error shocks from government expenditure on health and education affect output more than employment along the 10-horizon period. Evidence from the long-run output model showed that government expenditure on education and human capital index is statistically significant, while government expenditure on health is not statistically significant. Government expenditure on education and the human capital index has a positive relationship with output. For the long-run employment model, government expenditure on health and education is statistically significant; while investment in human capital is not significant with employment. Government expenditure on education has a negative relationship with employment, while a positive relationship exists between government expenditure on health and employment. The result implies that human capital indicators in terms of quantity and quality do not contribute positively and significantly to employment growth in Nigeria. The study recommends the need to encourage self-reliance through entrepreneurship training to bolster employment opportunities in the long run

The credit channels of monetary policy transmission: implications on output and employment in Nigeria

There has been an increasing trend in the unemployment rate despite the growth rate witnessed. Monetary policy is presumed as one of the ways to improve the situation. Likewise, the relationship between monetary policy and employment has generated controversial debates in the literature. Though its connection has been extensively studied, however, the implications of monetary policy in respect to time frame perspectives on employment and output have not been widely addressed in the literature. This study provides evidence on shock effects, long and short-run impacts of monetary policy transmission through the credit channels on output and employment in Nigeria within the period of 1981 to 2016 using the Structural Vector Autoregression and Autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL). Evidence from the forecast error shock showed that variations in monetary policy indicators affect output more than employment in the first two periods; however, it affects employment more afterwards. The ARDL results show no evidence of co-integration when output is used as the dependent variable; conversely, cointegration exists when employment is used as the dependent variable. The monetary policy indicators: money supply, bank deposit liability and interest rate are statistically and economically significant with employment in the long run. In the short run, money supply and interest rate are economically and statistically significant. The findings revealed that the Nigerian government can maximize the long-run benefits of monetary policy through the credit channels on employment. Hence, there is a need for policymakers to look beyond short-run gain and promote long-run employment via monetary policy among others

Monetary Policy Channels and Agricultural Performance: Evidence from Nigeria

The implications of monetary policy on agricultural performance have not been given adequate attention in literature to date, especially in connection with employment and export in the agricultural sector. Determining the right channels of monetary policy can help to achieve sustainable growth in developing economies. This study examines the impact of monetary policy channels on agricultural performance in Nigeria using structural vector autoregression (SVAR) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS). The study uses output employment and export as metrics for agricultural performance, and the channels of monetary policy considered are credit, interest rate, money and exchange rate. The SVAR variance decomposition findings show that the forecast error shocks of monetary policy channels affect agricultural performance. Likewise, the long-run equations from the DOLS show that output has a positive relationship with money supply, a negative relationship between employment and interest rate, and a negative relationship between exchange rate and export. Based on the findings, the study suggests that the Nigerian government should look beyond the primary objective of stabilizing the economy via money supply and interest rate and consider the secondary benefits of bolstering output and employment in the agricultural sector

Stock Market and Economic Growth in Nigeria

This study investigates the short run effect, long run effect and causal relationship between stock market and economic growth in Nigeria. The Augmented Dickey Fuller unit root test, Ordinary Least Squares, Johansen Cointegration test and Pairwise granger causality methods were applied to the variables. The OLS result showed that the all share index had a significant but negative relationship with economic growth; The Johansen cointegration test showed that a long run relationship exists between the stock market performance and economic growth in Nigeria in the long run while the Granger causality test results showed that stock market performance does not granger cause economic growth but economic growth granger causes stock market performance at 5 percent significance level. The study suggested some of the possible reasons for the negative impact of stock market on the Nigerian economic growth and recommended that efforts should be made to improve the stock market performance to have a positive effect on the real gross domestic product of Nigeria overtime