AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NIGERIA

Nigeria has witnessed a great change in information and communication technology (ICT) as a result of the liberalisation of the telecommunication sector in the country in the early 2000s coupled with high rate of economic growth. Consequently, this study examines the relationship and impact of ICT on economic growth in Nigeria. Using a secure internet server per 1 million, mobile cellular subscription per 100 people, and investment in telecoms with private sector participation (in current USD) as proxies for ICT, and GDP as proxy for economic growth for the period 1997 to 2016, the outcome of the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) reveals that there is a cointegration between ICT and economic growth, which establishes the existence of a long-run relationship between them. In the short run, only secure internet server per 1 million and mobile cellular subscription per 100 people have a positive and significant impact on economic growth, whereas investment in telecoms with private sector participation was not significant. The Granger causality test shows the bidirectional causality between secure internet server per 1 million and economic growth. The results suggest that there is a need for a strong political will to support an enabling environment and to propel the ease of doing business in the sector to attract private and foreign investment into the sector, as this would improve the secure internet server, increase the penetration of mobile usage to the rural communities, and increase the performance of other sectors of the economy that would foster the economic growth of Nigeria.

Keywords:

Information and communication technology, ARDL, Nigeria,

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