Effect of Government Expenditure on Economic Development: A Study of Selected West African Countries

Abstract

The importance of government expenditure on the development of the economy cannot be underrated. As such, the study explored the effect of government expenditure on economic development of selected West African countries (2000-2018) using secondary data from World Bank and United Nations Development Annual report. The research work chose five West African countries as its sample and used Random effect of the panel analysis to test the effect of the explanatory variables (government expenditure on health, defence and education) on the dependent variable, economic development (proxy by Human Development Index). The finding of the study shows that government expenditure had insignificant but positive effect on human development index of selected West African countries within the timeframe of the study. The study therefore recommends among others that Government should increase its expenditure on education, health and security, tackle corruption and waste. West African countries should also ensure that funds allocated to these sectors are not diverted or funneled into private pockets.