Government Human Capital Development and Economic Growth in Nigeria

Abstract:

The study examined the effect of government human capital development on economic growth of Nigeria. The variables of human capital development employed in the study are government health expenditure, government education expenditure, literacy rate, life expenditure and control for oil revenue, while gross domestic product is the proxy for economic growth and the dependent variable. The data were obtained from CBN Statistical bulletin and World development Indicator covering 1986 to 2018. The Augmented Dickey Fuller test for stationary and Autoregressive Distributive Lag was used for data analyses. The results showed that government human capital development has a significant long run effect on economic growth of Nigeria. The coefficient of the long run equation revealed that government education expenditure and life expectancy have a negative relationship with economic growth, while government health expenditure, literacy rate, oil revenue and trend have positive relationship with economic growth. Only government education expenditure does not have a statistically significant long run effect on economic growth in Nigeria. More so, the coefficient of short run relationship showed that government education expenditure and life expectancy have a negative and statistically significant effect on growth while government health expenditure, literacy rate, oil revenue as well as trend showed positive and significant short run effects on economic growth. The study thus concluded that government human capital development is a veritable means to enhancing economic growth in Nigeria. It was thus recommended that government should address the agitations of the education sector to strengthen the quality of education, increase its capital budget on health sector as well as redirect from theory based to hands-on and value-based learning in Nigeria.