An empirical analysis of globalization and Nigeria's economic growth (1981–2011)

The research investigated the impact of globalization proxied by the degree of openness on economic growth in Nigeria proxied by the growth rate of GDP between 1981 and 2011. Using Nigerian data and OLS simple regression analysis complemented by unit root stationarity test, Johansen cointegration and Vector Autoregression test, the coefficient of the openness indicator was negative hence violated the a priori expectation. This was because; the level of trade in Nigeria was below the minimum threshold needed for the coefficient to be positive. Based on this premise, the Ho was accepted that globalization has had no serious impact on Nigeria's economic growth. Recommendations made include improvement in the productive capacity of the country, tackling the security challenges to pave way for FDI inflows into the country and diversification of the mono-cultural nature of the Nigerian economy.