The study investigates the determinants of selected manufactured imports in Nigeria with a special focus on the role of domestic production. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) in the context of new trade theory was utilised with data coverage between 1985 and 2016. Results show that imports of various manufactured products are affected differently by some factors. In particular, domestic output of electrical & electronics have a significant and negative effect on own imports. However, there was no significant effect of domestic production of petroleum products on imports of the same goods. Also, the effect of domestic output of food & beverages on imports of same product is positive. Further, the sensitivity of imports to exchange rate changes differ across products, in some it have immediate effect while in some it delays for a year. In the same vein, while GDP is an important driver of imports of some products, it is unimportant for some. Also, it is only food & beverages imports that significantly respond to change in tariffs. The overall conclusion from this study is that drivers of import demand differ across products.

This paper analyses the relationship between government capital expenditure and private investment in Nigeria using time series data spanning from 1981 to 2016. Government capital expenditure was disaggregated into different components and ADF unit root test was employed to establish the stationarity properties of the variables in the model. The result of Johanson co-integration test revealed that the variables have long run relationship. Co-integration regression results suggested that capital expenditure on physical assets and defense displaced private sector investment while government capital expenditure on human capital and public debt servicing promote private sector investment in Nigeria. Furthermore, the results of T-Y causality revealed the bidirectional causality private sector investment and government capital expenditure in Nigeria. Based on these findings, the paper recommends that government capital expenditure should be channel to human capital in order to promote private sector investment in Nigeria. In addition, the Nigerian government should pay more attention to capital expenditure on physical assets since it has a significant impact on private sector investment. Lastly, Nigeria government should address the issue of budget delay, corruption, and mismanagement in Nigerian institutions.

This study investigates the determinants of intra-regional trade in the Economic of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Community of Sahel-Saharan Sates (CEN-SAD) over the period of 1995-2018.The study employs the modified Poisson models, which captures the source of zero counts. Data on the real exchange rate, population, and gross domestic product were sourced from World Bank Development Indicators. Import flow, time of import, and time of export were computed from WITS (COMTRADE). Further, the study obtained data on voice and account, law and order, government effect, regulatory quality, reduction in political violence, control of corruption from World Wide Governance indicator. The results of the study indicated that imports within ECOWAS are driven by one governance variable or the other either in the importing countries or the partner countries. Besides, trade facilitation is a binding constraint to imports, while population and GDP are important drivers of intra-ECOWAS trade. For CEN-SAD, it is evident that the gravity variables are responsible for imports, whereas governance variables have no significant effect on imports. The implication of these results is that authorities in ECOWAS and CEN-SAD should strengthen governance institutions as doing so will boost trade within the region. Also, it is necessary for government, particularly in CEN-SAD, to come up with policies that will allow for accountability and transparency.