Human Capital, Technology, and Economic Growth

Abstract

This article investigated the impact of human capital and technology on economic growth in Nigeria. We employed annual time series data for the period of 35 years (1975-2010) and applied autoregressive distributed lag approach to cointegration to examine the relationship between human capital, technology, and economic growth. Two proxies of human capital (secondary and tertiary school enrollments) were used in two separate models. The cointegration result revealed that all the variables in the two separate models were cointegrated. Furthermore, the results of the two estimated models showed that human capital in form in secondary and tertiary school enrollments have had significant positive impact on economic growth. More so, technology also shows significant positive impact on economic growth. In a nutshell, both human capital and technology are important determinants of growth in Nigeria. Therefore, improvement of the educational sector and more funding for research and development (R&D) to encourage innovations are needed to facilitate Nigeria’s sustained economic growth.