Determinantsof Infrastructural Spending Bysub-National Governments in Nigeria
[Thesis]
Aminat, Usman Mama
Odedokun, Matthew
Kwara State University (Nigeria)
2019
71 p.
M.S.
Kwara State University (Nigeria)
2019
Infrastructure plays an all-pervasive role in any given society.As such, financing of infrastructure project is expected to yield positive externality on economic growth and improvement in the quality of life. Nigeria is not an exception in this regard. In view of this importance of infrastructures, this study aimed to identify the determinants of infrastructural spending by sub-national government, specifically, infrastructural spending of the state and local governments in Nigeria. The data spanning 1981 to 2016 for state governments and 1993 to 2016 for local governments, sourced from 2016 Statistical Bulletin of the Central Bank of Nigeria and World Bank's 2017 World Development Indicators were employed. The study adopted Wagner's law as its theoretical framework and two equations were estimated for each of the states and local governments. Using Augmented Dickey-fuller (ADF),the stationarity tests showed that none of the variables were stationary at levels, but only after their first difference. Engle-Granger single equation integration test revealed that there exist long-run relationships among the non-stationary series in the two models. As a result,Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square Cointegrating Regression (FMOLS) method was employed. Diagnostic tests revealed that the two equations are devoid of autocorrelation, non-normality of residuals and multicollinearity. Empirical results revealed, among others, that recurrent expenditure(REC), internally generated revenue (IGR )and fiscal deficits(FD) had effects on infrastructural spending at the state and local government levels.The study concludes, among others, that IGR is used in financing infrastructural spending at the local government level, FD is used in financing infrastructural spending at the state and local government levels and the larger the number of states, the larger will be the spending on infrastructure at the state level.Therefore, we recommend that state and local governments should assiduously seek out ways of intensifying their IGR and that the Central Bank of Nigeria too should facilitate their (i.e.state and local government ) incurrence of deficits through lending by commercial banks to the sub-national governments. Also the capital market authority should facilitate the access of these two lower levels of government to the capital market to borrow. Creation of more states should be refrained from so as to avoid needless duplication of infrastructures and, hence, needless infrastructural spending.