Abstract
The study examined government spending on health and economic growth in Nigeria (1990 – 2021). The role of government expenditure in health is crucial fostering economic growth particularly in developing countries like Nigeria. However, the impact of government expenditure on health in Nigeria has been relatively low due to high level of corruption, low government expenditure as well as low private partnership of individual into the sector. The objectives of the study include; assess the impact of government health expenditure on economic growth in Nigeria, investigate the extent to which government expenditure on education impacted on economic growth in Nigeria and determine the impact of life expectancy on economic growth in Nigeria. The study adopted descriptive research design as the methodology. Economic growth was used as the dependent variable whereas government health expenditure, government expenditure on education, life expectancy was used as the independent variables. ARDL – Bound Test was employed and the result disclosed that there was a long run relationship existing between government expenditure on health and economic growth in Nigeria. Moreover, the estimated long run coefficients of the variables of the study indicated that as thus: government health expenditure, government expenditure on education and life expectancy had positive and significant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. Consequently, the study recommends that government should ensure that budgetary allocation to health sector is judiciously utilized in order to meet the health needs in Nigeria. Government should increase budgetary allocation to the educational sector to reflect UNSCO recommendations of 26 percent of the national budget and 6 percent of the gross
domestic products (GDP) for developing country like Nigeria and government should increase the amount of its expenditure on the health sector to meet up to the 15% threshold as it's discovered from the empirical result that it enhances improvement in life expectancy.