DEFICIT FINANCING AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY

Abstract

Regardless of the vast amount of debt Nigerian government accommodate annually, the projected level of development is not realized as sizeable percentage of her citizens still lives in miserable poverty, low standard of living and soaring level of unemployment and so on. Consequently, one starts to question why the theoretical proposition seems not to be working in the Nigerian perspective. It is based on these commotions that this research work seeks to scrutinize the effect of deficit financing on recovery and development of the Nigerian economy between the periods 1981 to 2015 employing error correction model and granger causality test. Study exposes that Federal Government external debt displays a significant P-value of 0.0173 with a positive coefficient of 0.000031 signifying that 1% increase in government external debt is capable of intensifying economic recovery and development in Nigeria to the tune of 0.00003. The details of the causality test also corroborate the report in the error correction model and thus advocate that external debt extensively adds to the development of the Nigeria economy while domestic debt and deficit budget does not give the impression to granger cause economic development in Nigeria. On this basis, study affirms that deficit financing is a crucial incentive in advancing economic development in Nigeria if effectively disbursed for the primary rationale for which it was meant for. Additionally, study thus authenticates the Keynesian theory of the existence of positive relationship between deficit financing and economic recovery. On this note, study recommends that executives of the Nigerian economy should harmonize the appropriation of borrowed fund and make certain that it is well utilized towards improving the capital and production dominance of the nation as this will further boost the realization of accomplishing a sustainable level of economic development in Nigeria. Article visualizations: