This research examined the effect of human capital development on the growth of Nigeria economy. The objectives of the study include to: (i) determine the extent to which significant long-run relationship exist among the human capital development and economic growth in Nigeria, (ii) determine if expenditure on education has significant effect on economic growth in Nigeria, (iii) investigate if expenditure on health has significant effect on economic growth in Nigeria. Using co integration techniques to investigate the effect of human capital development and economic growth in Nigeria, we obtained the following results. (i) there is significant long-run relationship between human capital development and economic growth in Nigeria. This is confirmed by the Johansen co-integration. (ii) It was estimated from the VECM, 1% increase in the government expenditure on education (TEDU), on the average led to 23.8% increase in GDP while. 1% increase in the government expenditure on health (THEA) caused 37.6% decrease in GDP. (iii) The two variables as human capital development factor were found to have significant effect on economic growth. However, government expenditure on education has positive relationship with GDP. This implies any increase in expenditure on education contributes positively to the growth of the economy. Based on the findings, the policy implications are in three directions (i) to retain the continuous long run relationship with GDP and human capital development, effort should be made to harmonize the activities in the health and education sector with much attention on funding. The harmonization of the activities in these two sectors will have long run effect on the economy. (ii) as one of the factors of human capital development, government expenditure on education was found to have positive effect on the economy. In the light of this, government should try as well to meet up with world standard benchmark on education expenditure in the annual budget. In so doing, this will improve on the economy. (iii) government expenditure on health was found to have negative effect on the economy. Therefore, effort should be made by government to address the agitations by the health workers which always make them to resort to frequent strike actions. If these worrying issues are addressed, the instability experienced in the health sector will be solved. This will go the long way promoting the economy. More so, efforts should be made to equip our health sector so that capital flight in the name of foreign medical treatment is reduced.
Keywords: Government Expenditure on Education, Government Expenditure on health, Human Capital Development, Nigeria
