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Nigeria Economic Growth & Poverty

EPAR TECHNICAL REPORT #327

Tue, 03/22/2016

AUTHORS: Caitlin Aylward; Pierre Biscaye; Audrey Lawrence; Mia Neidhardt; C. Leigh Anderson; Travis Reynolds

ABSTRACT: 

Common aid allocation formulas incorporate measures of income per capita but not measures of poverty, likely based on the assumption that rising average incomes are associated with reduced poverty. If declining poverty is the outcome of interest, however, the case of Nigeria illustrates that such aid allocation formulas could lead to poorly targeted or inefficient aid disbursements. Using data from the World Bank and the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics, we find that while the relationship between economic growth and poverty in Nigeria varies depending on the time period studied, overall from 1992-2009 Nigeria’s poverty rate has only declined by 6% despite a 70% increase in per capita gross domestic product (GDP). A review of the literature indicates that income inequality, the prominence of the oil sector, unemployment, corruption, and poor education and health in Nigeria may help to explain the pattern of high ongoing poverty rates in the country even in the presence of economic growth. Our analysis is limited by substantial gaps in the availability of quality data on measures of poverty and economic growth in Nigeria, an issue also raised in the literature we reviewed, but our findings support arguments that economic growth should not be assumed to lead to poverty reduction and that the relationship between these outcomes likely depends on contextual factors.

View blog posts (part 1 and part 2) summarizing this work. 

TYPE OF RESEARCH: Literature Review

RESEARCH TOPIC CATEGORY: Household Well-Being & Equity; Poverty; Political Economy & Governance

POPULATION(S): Countries/Governments

GEOGRAPHIC FOCUS: West Africa Region and Selected Countries

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