Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences: Home

Abstract:
Nigeria has been described as a country with a great and strong potential that its economy has grown consistently at an average rate of 6% per year. Despite this growth potential, the level of poverty, unemployment, and income inequality have continued to be on the increase. The number of people living in poverty increased from 27.2% o in 1980 to 69% in 2010. It has also been observed that about 110 million Nigerians were still living below the poverty line despite the policies of past governments to improve their welfare. This relates to the high level of corruption and wrong policy formulation that has bedevilled the society. This study therefore empirically examines the relationship between corruption and the level of poverty in Nigeria for the period 1986 to 2014. The data for the study were secondary in nature that were sourced from the publication of World Bank Development Indicator (2015) and Country Risk Guide (2012). The poverty index was generated using Principal Component analysis (PCA). Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model was used in analysing the data for the study. The result of the study showed that corruption has a serious and adverse effect on the welfare of the citizens by reducing the expenditure on health, education and other social services thus increasing the level of poverty in Nigeria.

Keywords: Corruption, Poverty, ARDL, Economic Growth, Error Correction Model (ECM), Nigeria.

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