International trade and economic growth in Nigeria: An auto regressive and distributed LAG bound test approach

This paper empirically investigated the impact of international trade on economic growth in Nigeria during the period 1981 – 2017. To achieve the purpose of this research, we estimated real GDP as a function of imports, exports, gross fixed capital formation, unemployment rates and exchange rate. The methods used are: the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) techniques, Augmented Dickey- Fuller unit root test, Johansen co-integration test, error correction technique, and the Granger causality test. The empirical results revealed that: all the variables used are integrated of the same order, 1(1) except for unemployment and gross fixed capital formation which were integrated of order 1(0); also, the bound test revealed that there is evidence of the existence of a long run relationship among the variables used; while the causality test revealed that exports granger causes economic growth in Nigeria. Findings revealed that there is short run impact of export trade on economic growth. Also, causality runs from imports and exports to economic growth in Nigeria. Based on these findings, the study therefore recommends among other things that: the government should improve on her trade contents and concentrate on the exportation of labour intensive products and as a result, improve economic performance.