Nexus of Fiscal Instability and Developmental Outcomes in Nigeria

This paper examines the effect of fiscal instability component on the fluctuation in welfare indicator for 45 years. Descriptive statistics reveals that fiscal component and real GDP per capital are largely unstable and Hodrick-Prescott filter (HPF) is employed as a smoothing measure of the long-term component. Descriptive statistics reveals that lesser government revenue had been committed to the development purposes compared with recurrent expenditure since the beginning of the fourth republic in Nigeria. Using ARDL model, the study found that, there exist a long-run association among the variable of interest as one percent increase in the rate of instability in recurrent expenditure led to an approximate of 30% reduction in the fluctuation of the welfare indicator while instability in the capital expenditure led to 36% increase in the fluctuation of the GDP per capital. In the short-run however, 1% increase in the immediate lagged value of cyclical capital expenditure had significantly increase the fluctuation in the current welfare index by 54% but such effect is reduced to 43% in two-year lagged. Also, one percent increase in the immediate lagged value of instability in the recurrent government expenditure had significantly reduced the fluctuation in the GDP per capital by 21% but only 9% of such reduction was off set in the two-year lagged. The study therefore, recommended greater control of instability in the fiscal components through diversification revenue base should be emphasized in other to stabilize the fluctuation of the welfare indicator in the short-run and long-run.