This study investigates the link between aid and human capital in promoting economic growth of Nigeria. The study used two models; the first model was used to test the validity of the medicine model in Nigeria; while the extended model was used to investigate the effect of aid and human capital shocks on growth using Engle-Granger and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) estimation techniques respectively. The findings from the first model suggest that persistent increase in foreign aid flows beyond a particular point (the optimal point) may adversely affect growth thus confirming the proposition of the Medicine Model. Evidence from the study's extended model indicates that growth in Nigeria is sensitive to human capital shock via education while the response from aid shock is trivial in the long run. The mechanism through which aid impacts economies is influenced by many heterogeneous factors, notably; the role played by the recipient governments is often not considered. Our implication from the obtained results is that government expenditures on education with additional inflows of aid can promote economic growth in Nigeria. However, there is also an indication that attainment of economic growth might be challenging for this aid-dependent country.

Nigerian economy depends on oil as the major source of revenue, failure to diversify the revenue base has raised questions about its sustainability and implication on the economy. This study uses market capitalization, broad money stock, credit to private sector, prime interest rate and deposit liability as proxies for the financial sector, while output in the manufacturing sector and manufacturing employment are used as proxies for manufacturing performance. The study examines the causal effects, shock effect and long-run impact using Granger Non-Causality, Vector Error Correction Model, and Dynamic Ordinary Least Square method, respectively. The results showed unidirectional causality, confirming the hypothesis of the 'supply-leading view' and 'demand-following view' except for market capitalization and output in the manufacturing sector, where independence was observed. The variance decomposition shows that the forecast error shock of credit to private sector and prime interest rate show more variations in manufacturing sector performance than other financial indicators. The long-run result using output in manufacturing sector as dependent variable shows a positive significant relationship with other financial sector indicators, except for broad money stock and deposit liability. This study recommended credit channel for transmission of monetary policy using interest rate to improve the performance of manufacturing sector, among others.

PurposeThe implications of trade on developing economies have generated substantial debates with most studies focussed on “openness in the policy”. Hence, the purpose of this study is to focus on “openness in practice”.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses two models and employed the vector error correction model and structural vector autoregression, first, to examine the sectoral effects; second, to investigate the efficacy of neoclassical and new trade theories; and third, to analyse the effect of trade openness shock on Nigerian labour market performance.FindingsThe results of the first model showed that trade openness has an adverse effect on employment and wages in both the agriculture and manufacturing sectors. Likewise, the study concludes that the new trade theory explains trade's behaviour on employment and wages in Nigeria. The second model showed that the effect of error shock from trade openness affected wages more than employment.Research limitations/implicationsThe study ignores the distributional effects due to unavailability of data.Practical implicationsThe study suggested, amongst others, the need for policies mix on the labour market via a coherent set of initiatives in other to increase the competitiveness of Nigeria in the international market.Originality/valueMost studies focussed on openness in policy through the channels identified in the literature. However, this study investigates these channels in “openness in practice” and investigates trade theories' efficacy on manufacturing and agricultural sectors in Nigeria, which has been neglected in the literature.

Both hypothetical and empirical evidences have found the roles that human capital and energy infrastructure in spurring the economic growth of a nation as very germane. These key variables are undoubtedly working together in a quest to achieve equitable redistribution of the nation's economic resource and ensuring poverty reduction. This study is based on an attempt to use co-integration and ARDL modeling framework to examine the empirical evidence of the impact of the different components of human capital and energy infrastructure on economic growth in Nigeria between 1981 and 2018. Findings from the study showed that the quality of educational, transportation and communication facilities had a significant and contemporary influence on economic development. In the same way, investment in physical resources calculated by gross fixed capital development, quality of healthcare facilities, availability of power supply were also found to have a positive impact with a lag effect on economic growth. Implicitly, an increase in these facilities over the past decade in terms of their availability and efficiency would boost economic development over the current period. The study therefore recommended that education and health should be given an unwavering focus on investment by the policy maker as components of human capital coupled with energy infrastructure if the desired growth for which Nigeria aspires is to be attained.

The development of tax payment decision-making models (Sociological, Economical and Psychological) has focused on economic and behavioural factors affecting tax compliance. The issue of tax evasion, which remains an ethical problem for companies, has been a general concern in developed and developing countries alike. The main problem of this study is low tax collection on the part of relevant tax authority, couple with non-tax compliance behaviour of the corporate taxpayers in Nigeria. This study examined the effect of tax fairness of tax authority on tax compliance behaviour of taxpayers in the Nigerian manufacturing sector. This study adopted a survey research method, and 400 copies of the questionnaire were administered to the selected listed manufacturing companies in Nigeria and relevant tax authority staff (FIRS). Theory of Planned Behaviour underpinned this study and Correlation analysis, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Multiple Regression analysis were also employed. The