Impact of Government Health and Education Expenditure on Economic Growth in Nigeria: Econometric Approach of Autoregressive Distributive Lag Model (ARDL)

The study examined the impact of the impact of government health and education expenditure on economic growth in Nigeria. The specific objectives were to: (i) determine the impact of government health expenditure on economic growth in Nigeria; (ii) ascertain the impact of government education expenditure on economic growth in Nigeria and (iii) evaluate the impact of Primary school enrolment rate on economic growth in Nigeria. This study made use of ex post-facto research design. The data analytical technique was Autoregressive Distributive Lag Model. Empirical results of the study show that (i) government health expenditure (GHE) has 26 percent positive and insignificant impact on economic growth in Nigeria (t – statistics (1.104568) < critical value (1.694); (ii) government education expenditure (GEE) has 10 percent positive but insignificant impact on economic growth in Nigeria (t – statistics (0.083962) < critical value (1.694) and (iii) primary school enrolment rate (PSER) has 11 percent positive and insignificant impact on the economic growth in Nigeria (t – statistics (0.853753) was < critical value (1.694). It implies that a percent increase in primary school enrolment rate government results to 11 percent insignificant increase in economic growth in Nigeria. The study recommends federal Government should instill fiscal discipline in health sector spending in Nigeria to ensure that funds allocated to the education and health sector are efficiently utilized and monitored.