The link between gender inequality, financial development, and economic growth in Nigeria: A spectral Granger causality approach

Abstract The male and female genders have crucial roles to play in economic advancement. Thus, the main reason for this research is to pinpoint the causal link between gender inequality (GPIN), financial development (FIDX), inflation (INFL), and economic growth (GDPC) in Nigeria from the year 1980–2020 utilizing the Spectral Granger and Pairwise Granger causality methods and “Residual Augmented Least Square (RALS) cointegration. The RALS result show confirms the stationarity properties of the variables. The Spectral Granger causality outcomes show that GPIN granger causes GDPC in the long, medium, and short–term. In addition, the FIDX granger causes GDPC in the long and short–term, while the medium–term impact is insignificant. For INFL, causality only occurs in the long–term. On the other hand, the Pairwise Granger causality results show that GPIN and FIDX granger cause GDPC, while INFL is insignificant. Therefore, if GPIN and FIDX can predict economic expansion, policymakers need to create policies that can reduce diverse forms of inequalities, promote financial development, and reduce inflation to the barest minimum.