COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF LINEAR AND NON-LINEAR REGRESSION MODELS ON IMPACT OF NIGERIAN POPULATION AND DEBT ON GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP)

Abstract

Country’s population is a 2way adaptor, either beneficiary or detrimental depending on how the government channels it. But national debt is short term beneficiary and become economic trap if persistent in the long run on economic growth of the nation. There had been numerous studies that aimed at examining the effects of public debt and population growth on economic growth carried out over time across countries of the world, models of both linear and non-linear had been applied to solve problems of public debt and population on Gross Domestic product most of which are bereft of strategic empirical evidences suitability in developing countries. We consider Linear and Exponential growth model estimators for estimating the significant of population and National debt on the economic growth of Nigeria measured by GDP and realized that population growth rate has exerted significant positive impact on economic growth (GDP) While, National debt does not have any significant impact on economic growth. Moreover, AIC still remain the best model selection criterial and that linear regression model is recommended in fitting Nigeria economic growth on the population and public Debt. 

Key Words: Akaike Information Criterial (AIC), Exponential growth rate, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Linear growth rate, Population, Public Debt.