IMPACT OF GOVERNMENT AGRICULTURAL EXPENDITURE ON UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Abstract This study empirically investigates the impact of Government Agricultural Expenditure on Unemployment Rate in Nigeria from 1985 to 2015. The study used time series data and econometrics tools were used for testing for the stationarity and causality. To show the impact and the relationships among the variables Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) was used. From the result there is a strong relationship between Unemployment Rate and Government agricultural Expenditure in Nigeria and the R2 of 0.62 per cent indicates that 62 per cent of the variations in the Unemployment Rate is explained by variations in the Total Agricultural Production in Nigeria, Total Agricultural Exportation in Nigeria, Government Agricultural Capital Expenditure in Nigeria, Government Agricultural Recurrent Expenditure in Nigeria and Total Expenditure in Nigeria. This implies that agricultural sector has impact on the reduction of Unemployment Rate in Nigeria. The result shows that Total Agricultural Production in Nigeria, Total Agricultural Exportation in Nigeria, Government Agricultural Capital Expenditure in Nigeria and Government Agricultural Recurrent Expenditure in Nigeria are negatively related to Unemployment Rate in Nigeria both Total Agricultural Production in Nigeria and Government Agricultural Capital Expenditure in Nigeria were statistically significant at 5 per cent level of significance while Total Agricultural Exportation in Nigeria and Government Agricultural Recurrent Expenditure in Nigeria were statistically significant at 5 per cent level of significance. On the other hand Total Expenditure in Nigeria is positively related to Unemployment Rate in Nigeria and it is statistically significant at 5 per cent level of significance.