PUBLIC FINANCE INSTRUMENTS AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN NIGERIA

In low-income countries like Nigeria, governments use the instruments of public finance to carry out their crucial function of promoting the well-being of their residents which includes poverty alleviation. However, they often find deciding on how to achieve that objective difficult owing to some challenges. This study investigates the impact of public finance instruments on poverty reduction in Nigeria using ex post facto as the research plan strategy. Specifically, it examines the impacts of public revenue, public expenditure and public debt on poverty incidence in Nigeria for 1981 to2024. Unemployment, inflation and GDP growth rates are introduced in the study as control variables. Descriptive, correlation matrix and hierarchical regression are employed to analyze data. The findings indicate that while the impact of public revenue and public debt on the rate of poverty are positive and weak, the impact of public expenditure on poverty rate is both adverse and non-significant. Also, the findings show that the variables all move together toward the same direction during the study period. The implication is that there are strong interrelationships among the variables and that any alteration in one may have ripple effects across the others. Consequently, governments are advised to fine-tune their public finance instruments to invigorate the economy, reduce income imbalance and reduce poverty level significantly