AN ARDL APPROACH TO MACROECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF FOREIGN DEBT IN NIGERIA

Abstract Following the desire to investigate the macroeconomic determinants of foreign debt in Nigeria, the study used the Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) with the help of gross domestic product, consumer price index, domestic credit, productivity index, population, foreign reserve and balance of payment account as the utilised macroeconomic determinants. The secondary data used was the Central Bank of Nigeria statistical bulletin and was used between the year 1981 and 2023 and unit root test augmented Dickey Fuller test was used to test the stationarity of the data set used. The unit root test value indicated that after the initial differencing, the data set were stationary whereas the ARDL value indicated that in the short term, the consumer price index, gross domestic product and population were significant in explaining the external debt in Nigeria whereas balance of payment, domestic credit, productivity index and external reserve were not. The result that should have been obtained in the error correction is that the rate of error correction during the period was at 51.3. The study concludes that the macroeconomic variables that are critical in explaining the foreign debt of Nigeria include gross domestic product, consumer price index and population and recommends that among others, deliberate effort should be consciously made by the government in providing environment that will enable business strive being a striving business will help contribute to the overall gross domestic product which have been seen to be a key determinant of foreign debt in Nigeria.