Acta Universitatis Danubius. Œconomica, Vol 14, No 6 (2018)

Abstract

This study investigates the growth effects of external sector in Nigeria taking into consideration the role played by non-oil export commodities within the periods, 1980-2016. The Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) was employed to analyse the dynamic long-run and short-run estimates. The stationarity level of the variables at first difference and cointegration are confirmed prior VECM estimation. The results show that the parameter of non-oil export was positive and significant at 10% in the long-run indicating that the contribution of non-oil export commodity on output growth is weak. However, the parameter was positive and significant in the short-run at the conventional level. This implies that government policy should be directed towards increasing non-oil export commodities of agriculture, manufacturing and service industries with the aim of boosting output growth in Nigeria. The environment should be made favourable for local producers and investors to ease production and the distribution channels of goods and services to final consumers. The findings also showed that output growth was directly influenced by investment, labour force and government expenditure while negatively affected by exchange rate.