CONSTRUCTION SECTOR AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NIGERIA

Over time most developing countries have identified that a major constraint to their developmental efforts is the lack of synchronization between the construction sector, infrastructure and other areas of the economy. This study examines the long-run and short-run relationship between the construction industry and the growth of the Nigerian economy using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. The uniqueness of this estimation procedure is such that it produces a robust result of the long-run and short-run relationship even in situations where the time series data are integrated in the order of I(0) and I(1). The study uses the annual time-series data sourced directly from the Central Bank of Nigerian (CBN) Statistical Bulletin and World Bank Development Indicators (WDI) between the periods 1981-2014. The outcome of the study shows that the construction sector plays a significant role in the Nigerian economic growth in the short-run. However, the result revealed the absence of a long-run relationship between the construction industry and economic growth in Nigeria.