Population and Economic Growth in Nigeria: is there an Empirical Evidence of Causality?

Abstract

Studies that seek to explain the relationship between population growth and economic growth in Nigeria are at the moment very scanty. This study investigated the causal relationship between these afore-mentioned variables (i.e. population growth and economic growth) in Nigeria using annual time series data covering the period of 1970 to 2013. The study relied on the Granger-Causality technique to capture the objective of the study. The result of the neither Granger-Causality test showed that neither economic growth (GDPGR) caused population growth (POPGR) nor population growth (POPGR) caused economic growth (GDPGR) during the period under-studied. In the absence of any causal link between our variables of concern, this study thus recommended that the Nigerian government (in order to take advantage of the huge population size) invests more in education/human capital development in order to boost both the quantity and quality of the labour force which in turn is expected to positively impact economic growth in the long-run.

Keywords: Economic growth and causality, Population growth.