The paper empirically investigates the impact of the institutional and policy environment on Nigeria’s industrialization, using annual data for the period 1981 to 2013. The institutional environment was proxied by quality of service delivery while government expenditure as a percentage of GDP and real exchange rate were used to reflect the policy environment. Foreign direct investment as percentage of GDP was employed to reflect technological transfer and diffusion. Using the technique of cointegration, a long run relationship was found between industrialization and associated variables. Government expenditure was found to be positively related to industrialization and statistically significant in the long and short run. In the short run, real exchange rate is positively related to industrialization and statistically significant, while a negative and statistically significant relationship was found in the long run. In the long and short run, technological transfer indicates a negative relationship with industrialization. Quality of service delivery was found to influence industrialization positively and significantly in the long and short run. A bilateral causality was found between industrialization and the associated variables. Based on the empirical findings, it is concluded that the institutional and policy environments are critical to industrialization in Nigeria and that pragmatic efforts should be made to initiate and implement policies that promote industrial growth, while enhancing the quality of institutions.

In this study, a sample of the largest economies in Africa is used to investigate the impact of free trade on export competitiveness, using panel data econometric techniques on data covering 2000 through 2018. Results from the Pooled Ordinary Least Squares regression and reinforced by the Fixed Effect Model show that the significant positive determinants of export competitiveness are openness, exchange rate, ICT-related infrastructure and the rule of law, whereas corruption and foreign direct investment are significant constraints. Although tariff was found to be positively related to export competitiveness, it is not a significant driver. It is recommended that African countries should initiate and promote policies that enhance the quality and quantity of infrastructure, its institutional environment (encompassing the rule of law and the capacity to address corruption), including attracting the right kind of foreign direct investment that facilitates the utilization of its vast natural resources and transfers suitable technology. JEL Classification Codes: F10, F15, R10

This paper investigates the economic growth response to public infrastructure expenditure shocks in Nigeria. Quarterly time-series data spanning 1981:Q1 to 2019:Q4, sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin are used in the study. The structural vector auto-regressive method following Blanchard and Perrotti’s (2002) with Augmented Dickey-Fuller, Phillips and Perron, and Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin stationarity tests are employed in the paper. The results of the stationarity tests showed that all the model’s variables namely; real gross domestic product, public infrastructure expenditure, and government revenue became stationary after their first difference. However, the study extracted and classified the variance decomposition and impulse response functions into three regimes namely; short, medium, and long-term respectively. The findings reveal that in the short term, 10.5% variations in economic growth were associated with public infrastructure expenditure shocks while in the medium term, 29.7% variations in economic growth were associated with public infrastructure expenditure shocks, and in the long term, 42.6% variations in economic growth were associated with public infrastructure expenditure shocks in Nigeria. Economic growth responses to public infrastructure expenditure shocks were positive and statistically significant in the three regimes of short, medium, and long-term respectively. The study recommends that the federal government should concentrate more on reforms and spending policies that will result in the best possible policy and ultimately high and sustainable growth in Nigeria.