Contributions of Solid Mineral Sectors to Nigeria’s Economic Development

ABSTRACT: Over the past four decades, increasing emphasis has come to be placed on the potential importance of solid minerals to the Nigerian economy. A more common strand of research is those that tested the resource curse hypothesis to show empirically, the actual relationship between natural resources and economic growth. Whereas, most of the studies have looked at various resource endowment especially oil and metals, just a few have focused on solid minerals. This study analyzes the long-run relationship and also the importance of solid minerals and its impact to the economic development. Using the time series data for real exchange rate, real gdp, solid mineral output, and gross capital formation, a preliminary graphical study of the trend in solid minerals contribution to Nigeria’s real gdp shows that over time, the linkage of solid minerals to the real sector steadily declined with a couple of structural breaks. However, Result reveals a possible long run interaction amidst solid minerals, capital accumulation and real exchange rate and based on the co-integration tests, the estimated normalized level coefficients shows the anticipated long run beneath the unregulated model with the unrestricted long run equation result revealing solid minerals to be positively responsive to real gdp which shows a feedback relationship between solid minerals production and RGDP. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………