Abstract

This study examined public expenditure and economic growth in Nigeria. Secondary data from 1981 to 2021 were used as a result of the nature of investigation. The data were subjected to unit root diagnostic test to determine the stationarity of the data. The mixed order of integration established during the conduct of the unit root test gave rise to the adoption of Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. Error Correction Model (ECM) technique were also adopted to check for the cointegration. The study revealed that government expenditure on health (GEXH) produced a positive and significant effect on economic growth in Nigeria while government expenditure on education (GEXE) generated a negative and significant effect on GDP in Nigeria. Overall, the study indicated that public expenditure had a significant impact on GDP in Nigeria from 1981 to 2021. The study recommended that Government should endeavor to make unfailing commitment towards efficient commitment of resources to the development of the economy‘s education sector. Furthermore, given that the health sector has demonstrated an increasing share of returns, the government should allocate an appropriate part of its capital expenditure share to this sector in order to further boost economic growth.