Analysis of public expenditure constitutes a central issue in public sector economics and public finance literature. Understanding the reasons for government spending growth has been a central concern of public sector economists. This is due to the fact that most economies of the world have consistently had increased government expenditures. Nigeria is not an exception. There is need to ascertain the determinants of size of government expenditure in Nigeria. Short-Run Error Correction Model and long-run static equation were used for comparing the influence of those variables on the size of government spending. The long-run static equation served as a test to compare short-run dynamics with the long-run relationships. Ordinary least squares (OLS estimation technique was used. The stationarity tests showed that none of the variables was stationary at level form, but only after their first difference. The results of this study show that the size of revenue and growth rate of national income (output) and private investment significantly influence the size of public expenditure both in the short run and long run. External and domestic debts significantly influence the size of government expenditure only in the short run. It is recommended that the revenue base should be expanded; conducive environment should be created for private investment to thrive, and debt accumulation should be reduced and used for stabilization only in the short run. The conclusion to draw from this study is that revenue, private investment, and income boost public spending while public debts might be counterproductive.

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This study evaluates the Nigerian enterprise sector and policy uncertainty using the World Bank enterprise survey data for Nigeria 2010. Using the multinomial logistic regression model and the multivariate analysis to specifically analyze the impact of policy uncertainty on the enterprise sector and the factors that have influenced the growth of the Nigerian enterprise sector, the findings show that tax rate, customs and trade regulations and macroeconomic environment have impacted on the medium and large enterprise sector positively. The findings also showed that in the small enterprise sector, labour regulation, licensing and permits, policy uncertainty and political instability have negative impact on the medium and large sector enterprise sector in Nigeria. Meanwhile, electricity, unskilled workforce, cost of finance, practice of competitors, power outages and cost of raw materials or intermediate goods all have positive influence the growth of the Nigeria enterprise sector. The study recommends that proper macroeconomic environment, strong institutions, good leaderships and infrastructures will both enhance public and private sector productivity for economic competitiveness.Contribution/ Originality: This study contributes in the existing literature. This study is one of very few studies which have investigated policy uncertainty and enterprise sector, and factors affecting it. The paper contributes the first logical analysis, using superior data and methodology to other studies, that policy uncertainty affects Nigerian enterprise sector.

This paper examines the role of structural change in the asymmetric adjustment of retail energy prices following changes in crude oil costs. The paper also examines the pattern of adjustment in retail energy prices when exchange rate is accounted for as part of the marginal cost of importing crude oil in European countries with high oil import dependency ratio. The paper shows that the results of Greenwood-Nimmo and Shin (2013) no longer hold when the structural change in the relationship between retail energy prices and crude oil costs is taken into the consideration. The paper also cautions that studies like Kristoufek and Lunackova (2014) that failed to account for exchange rate as part of the marginal cost of importing oil for countries with high oil import dependency ratio may be misleading. In fact, the results of this paper further indicate that once the exchange rate effect is taken into consideration, the possibility of rent-seeking behaviour in the gasoline markets of Italy and Spain disappears; while the rockets and feathers effect observed in most of the ex-tax gasoline, diesel, domestic heating oil and industrial fuel oil markets vanishes.

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