ErhijakporAEO2021 scnMacro-Financial Deepening Indicators and Health Outcomes in NGR

Abstract

This paper examined the effect of macro-financial deepening indicators on the health outcomes in Nigeria for the period 1986-2018. The data was obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) (2019) statistical bulletin and the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) (2019) data set. The standard indicators selected are the ratio of Broad Money Supply (M2) to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the ratio of Credit to the Private (CPS) to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the ratio of Total Deposit (TD) to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the ratio of Total Loan (TL) to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the independent variables, while the dependent variable was taken as life expectancy at birth (LEAB). Also, inflation rate and lending rates were introduced as control variables. The ordinary least square (OLS) framework was used for the estimation. The results showed that CPS/GDP has significant effect on health outcomes in Nigeria, while M2/GDP and TL/GDP have insignificant positive effect on health outcomes in Nigeria. TD/GDP had insignificant negative effect on health outcomes. The country’s specifies of INFR and LINR have an insignificant negative impact on health outcome. The study therefore, recommends amongst others that; the government should continuously reform the financial sector, private sector to boost their health scheme for their employees, government should increase money supply with regulation of inflation mind, government should make the money market more investment oriented and friendly by regulating the lending interest rate to the one digit as seen in the emerged economies of the world.