Disaggregated Impact of Government Expenditure on Human Capital Development in Nigeria

This study examined the disaggregated impact of government expenditure on human capital development in Nigeria from 1989 – 2018. In spite of the enormous government spending, little have been felt in the area of human capital development, fundamental to consistent economic growth of any nation. It no news that educational sector has been poorly managed and funded to regenerate the desired human capital development which in turn spurs economic growth. Intuitively, the study adopted the ordinary least squares method, novel for its BLUE properties of it estimators. Several pre and post tests were done on the series used. The result found that capital expenditure has significant impact on human capital development cum economic growth in Nigeria and this finding is consistent with the endogenous hypothesis. Amazingly, variance decomposition result suggests that recurrent and capital expenditure collectively contribute to change in human capital development in Nigeria, approximates Wagner's hypothesis. In general, the results were in line with documented evidence from relevant studies such as the works of Al-Shatti (2014), Peter (2015) and Udoka and Anyingang (2015). It was recommended that Government should make sure that fixed assets and recurrent expenditures are properly managed to accelerate economic growth through deliberate investment in educational sector. In addition, government should propagate efficiency in the allocation of resources on human development by encouraging more private sector participation to ensure productivity-intensive growth.