Deregulation and its implications for economic growth

Abstract

The study found that real exchange rate has a positive and significant impact on growth, inflation has similar impact. Government fixed investment has negative significant impact on growth, and so does external debt. Fiscal deficit was found to have positive but insignificant impact on growth. As the period covered in the study contains twenty six pre-deregulation years, the influence of deregulation may not have been accurately captured. Partly to address this concern, a dummy variables was introduced for the SAP years. It was found not to be significant, implying that the (SAP) introduced since 1986 did not translate into long-run economic growth. The data used in this study were taken from CBN Statistical Bulletin, and Annual Report of various years. Quarterly data for the period 1986Ql - 2003Q4 were used. The Cochrane -Orcutt method of estimation was used. The ordinary least squares method did nor produce efficient estimates. Results are shown in Table 3. The diagnostic test statistic all show satisfactory results. R- bar squared value indicates that the model explains between 60 and 81 percent of growth performance. Durbin-Watson statistic suggests absence of serial correlation problem.