Foreign direct investment and Nigeria’s economic growth: a sectoral analysis

Abstract

Aggregate flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) to Nigeria, as in economies of the world, fall into different classified sectors of the economy. Studies on FDI in economic literature have been directed at the macroeconomic effects of FDI on economic growth. As sound as the findings of such studies appear, the growth impacts that FDI flows create on each sector of the economy are, however, masked. Thus this paper, using time-series data for the period 1970-2003 and adopting the ordinary least square technique, investigated the impacts of FDI flows on the outputs of some selected sectors in the Nigerian economy. The parsimonious form of analysis of general-to-specific was applied in the analysis of the model. The results shows that FDI flow was significant to sectoral growth of the mining and quarrying, and the transportation and communication sectors, but was not significant to the growth of the agriculture, forestry, and fishery sector.

JEL classification: F21, E23, O15, O30