Asymmetric influence of financial development on unemployment in Nigeria.

Abstract

The existing studies show conflicting results in the interaction between unemployment and financial development. In this study, we examine the asymmetric effect of financial development on unemployment in Nigeria. Using Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) technique to analyse data spanning for a period of 1980-2017, the results show the existence of long run equilibrium among the variables. The Wald test confirms that there is asymmetric linkage between financial development and unemployment in the long run and short run. The findings confirm that the positive components’ effects are more when compared with the negative components’ effect of financial development on unemployment. There is need to have a policy in place to boost job creation and employment opportunities via conducive financial market development conditions which can be sustained even in the long run. Overall, the study shows that financial sector development is an essential component of the economy that influences job creation and unemployment asymmetrically.