The Role of Public Healthcare Outlay in Economic Growth in Nigeria

Abstract

This study evaluates the nexus between public healthcare outlay and economic growth in Nigeria using annual time series data spanning from 1981 to 2024. The study employed Autoregressive Distributed Lags Approach to Cointegration and Error Correction Mechanism as estimation technique. According to the model’s estimated results, neither of the independent variables that is, government capital health spending or recurrent health spending which are proxies for public healthcare outlay has a noticeable impact on Nigeria’s economic spreading out. The independent variables were not significant, which could be attributed to lack of strength of indirect effects and the time lag between ongoing healthcare costs and the overall economy. Additionally, in Nigeria, corruption and leakages might be blamed for ineffective healthcare expenditures, which drop off the standard of healthcare and general wellness of the citizenry. In the light of the findings, the study recommends among others that the government should ensure efficiency and transparency of healthcare expenditure, alongside increased investment in the health sector to stimulate sustainable economic growth in Nigeria.