ABSTRACT

 The study examined effect of government expenditure on economic growth of Nigeria rom year 2000 to 2018 to determine the relationship between the variables during the democratic dispensation. It employed ex post facto research design and extracted data from CBN statistical bulletin. It extracted government expenditure on education, health and agriculture as the independent variables while percent change in real gross domestic product was used as economic growth. The study hypothesized that government expenditure on education, health and agriculture each has no significant effect on economic growth ofNigeria. The Dickey-Fuller unit root approach was employed to determine whether the variables are stationary and confirmed that they are stationary at first difference. The study adopted Johansen cointegration test to determine the long run relationship while the error correction method was employed to test the hypotheses. The results established that government expenditure on education and health individually has negative significant relationship with economic growth at lag length one while the expenditure on agriculture has positive relationship with economic growth in the short ran at lag length two. It also found that government expenditure on education, health and agriculture each has significant effect on percentage change in real gross domestic product. The study therefore concludes that government expenditure has significant effect on economic growth ofNigeria and recommends that government should ensure that expenditure on education is also directed towardsthose areas such vocational and technical education that will immediately impact on economic growth, government expenditure on health should be to improve health facilities so as to avoid capital flight and expenditure on agriculture should be towards improving the agricultural processing to enhance value chain.