Impact of Trade Openness on Nigerian Economic Growth: An Empirical Investigation, 1970-2011

Geopolitical territories have often engaged in one form of trade or another with their neighbours. That is because no nation in the world can survive without one form of trade with other sovereign states. This study examines the nature of trade openness and economic growth in Nigeria from 1970-2011. The emphasis of this empirical study is to ascertain the impact of trade openness on Nigeria's economic growth. Causal comparative or ex-post facto research design was adopted in the study. Econometric time series analyses like ADF unit root test, co-integration test and the ordinary least squared (OLS) were employed in the study. The result obtained was used to test the hypotheses, and it was revealed that (i) Trade Openness has positive significant impact on Nigeria's economic growth; while (ii) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) responds to the shock of Trade Openness value as a proxy of total import and total export divided by GDP as well as change in Exchange Rate (DEXR) within Nigeria's economy during the period of study. Thus, the co-integration results indicate that there exists long-run relationship among the variables used; hence; the researchers then recommended that there is urgent need for the government to create enabling environment for good trade policy that would attract both foreign and domestic private sector investment in the country.