IMPACT OF TRADE LIBERALIZATION ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA BASED ON ARDL APPROACH

Abstract

This research examined trade liberalization as one of the drivers of economic development between 1986 – 2016, according to World Development Report, irrespective of under unfavourable or favourable environment, open economies perform better compared with closed economy. It is acceptable standard that trade liberalization brings about employment generation, income creation, resource production, large total output improvements and relaxation or removal of foreign trade limitations (Nnadozie, 2013). Empirical researches was done in Nigeria on relationships between trade and economic development (Ehinomen & Da’silva, 2014)(Ezeuchenne, 2017) they had varied findings because of poor coverage, different techniques and sample size, therefore the need for empirical investigation; the period of choice was because of data availability. Autoregressive Distributed Lag(ARDL) was used as research econometric tool. The study findings revealed that trade liberalization did not cause growth during the period of the study.