Globalization and Industrial Development in Nigeria: A Curse or Cure?

The question whether globalization and its corresponding impacts carry a blessing or curse in developing countries has been a controversial issue among both the scholars and the policymakers, against this background this study provided an empirical answer to the question whether globalisation is a curse or cure to industrial development in Nigeria between 1990 and 2019 within the framework of the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) and Granger causality test. Consequently, the following principal findings emerged in this study. Firstly, both FDI inflows and trade openness which depict economic globalization had a negative relationship with industrial development respectively. Though, trade openness was significant while FDI inflows showed otherwise. In the same vein, a unidirectional causality ran from manufacturing value added to FDI inflows. However, no feedback relationship existed between trade openness and manufacturing value added. Therefore, this study submits that economic globalization is a curse to industrial development in Nigeria because the wave of economic globalization contributed a significant reduction in manufacturing value added in Nigeria in the last three decades. From these findings, the current wave of economic globalization could be a cure to industrial development in Nigeria, if only the policymakers in the country embark on policies that would drive the largest proportion of the inflows of FDI in the direction of manufacturing sub sector in the country. Similarly, all hands must be on deck by all the relevant stakeholders to ensure that manufactured products in Nigeria possesses value added quality to facilitate their competitiveness in the global market.

JEL Classification:F43; F62.