Interrupted Time Series Analysis of Military and Civilian Regimes in Nigeria: A Statistical Evidence from Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Abstract

Governments influence the economy by changing the level and types of taxes, the extent and composition of spending, and the degree and form of borrowing. Governments directly and indirectly influence the way resources are used in the economy. Higher taxes, fees, and greater regulations can stymie businesses or entire industries and the resulting impact is reflected on the country’s economy status (strong or weak). The growth rate of GDP is often used as an indicator of the general health of the economy. In broad terms, an increase in real GDP is interpreted as a sign that the economy is doing well. So it is important to study and pay more attention to country’s GDP growth rate. In this paper, an intervention analysis approach was applied to Nigeria GDP data in order to evaluate the performances of military and civilian rules in the country. Data on Nigeria GDP were collected and subjected to interrupted (intervention) time series model. Based on the Alkaike Information Criterion (AIC), Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) and sigma 2 values, the interrupted time series model ARIMA (1, 1, 0) with exogenous variables (per capita per capita GDP , intervention, year and yearAfter) was identified as the best model amongst other competing models. It was observed that the intervention (civilian rule) was significant at the 10% level of significance in increasing the Nigeria GDP by 10B US$ on the average since 2005 till 2021 while controlling for the effects of other determinants. Also, the ARIMA (1, 1, 0) forecasts indicate that the Nigeria GDP will continue increasing during the civilian rule. As a result, changing from military rule to civilian rule in Nigeria significantly increased the GDP of the country.