Migrants' remittance, agricultural production and economic growth in Nigeria

Despite huge remittances received by the Nigerian government, the problems of poverty, unemployment and inequality persist, indicating that Nigeria and the country are yet to make efficient use of remittances like other developing nations. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between migrants' remittances, agricultural production, and economic growth in Nigeria using time series data from 1990 to 2020. The study used the Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) Model to analyze the long- and short-run relationship between variables. The result showed a negative and significant relationship between remittances and economic growth in the long run but a positive and significant relationship in the short run. The study also showed a positive and significant relationship between remittances and agricultural production in the long run. Still, a negative and significant relationship was found between remittances and agricultural production in the short run. The result of the Granger causality test showed a unidirectional causal relationship between remittance to GDP, agricultural output to GDP, the exchange rate to GDP, and remittance to agricultural production. The Toda -Yamamoto test result showed that exchange rate, agricultural production, inflation and remittance jointly affect GDP. Also, GDP, agricultural production, inflation and remittance jointly affect the exchange rate. The study recommends that the Nigerian government put policies such as low charges on migrants' remittance inflows to reduce the influx of remittance through informal channels. And formulate policies that ensure that remittances are being used for productive investments that contribute positively to economic growth in the long run.