Direct and Reverse Causation of External Debt, Foreign Investment and Economic Growth in Nigeria, 1980-2017

Abstract

This study examined the direct and reverse relationship among external debt, foreign investment and economic growth in Nigeria, 1980-2017. The study is ex-post facto in design and adopted the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, Granger causality test, bound co-integration test and error correction representations. It was found that external debt and exchange rate were significant functions of Real Gross Domestic Product. Foreign Direct Investment and its lag were insignificant functions of real gross domestic product. The bound test following the ARDL framework, showed evidence in favor of co-integration among the variables regardless their stationarity properties. The rightly signed error correction term of 30.4% gives an indication that it takes about 3.28 years to restore the long-run equilibrium state on the real gross domestic product should there be any shock from the explanatory variables. It is therefore recommended among others that government should create an enabling environment that will attract foreign investment given the catalytic role it plays on economic growth in Nigeria.