The effect of road transportation on the economic growth of Nigeria

This research evaluates the impact of short-run and long-run impact of road transport infrastructure on GDP growth. It also examines the effect of road transportation infrastructure on poverty, the non-linearity relationship between road transportation systems and economic growth in Nigeria. Using an Autoregressive Distribution Lag, Ordinary Least Square Vector Autoregressive Model, it was found that the effect of road transport on GDP is positive and statistically significant in the long-run and short-run. It was also found that road transport has a significant positive effect on poverty reduction in Nigeria. The relationship between road transport and economic growth was found to be U shaped meaning that road transport is a drag on growth when the level of road construction is low. The positive growth effect of road network begins at road length of about 190 million kilometers for Nigeria. The Cause-Effect relationship between economic growth and road transportation is inconclusive. The thesis recommends an increased budget allocation to the road network and the need to ensure proper connectivity and linkages among federal, state and local roads. This will accelerate accessibility, the mobility of material and non-material resources which further improve economic growth and reduce poverty. Keywords: Road Transportation, Economic growth, Poverty, Nigeria.