THE RELATIONSHIP AMONG INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY HEALTH OUTCOMES AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NIGERIA USING TIME SERIES DATA BETWEEN 1980 AND 2024

This study examines the relationship among institutional quality health outcomes and economic growth in Nigeria using time series data between 1980 and 2024. The specific objectives of the study are to: examine the long-run and short-run impact of institutional quality and health outcomes on economic growth in Nigeria; examine the interaction among health outcomes, institutional quality and economic growth in Nigeria; and examine the causal relationship among institutional quality, health outcome and economic growth in Nigeria. The study Used estimation technics of Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. The ARDL result indicate that there is an absence of long run relationship between the dependent variable and independent variables. In the short run, government expenditure on health and regulatory quality in health sector have a positive relationship on economic growth in Nigeria. While control of corruption and government effectiveness have a negative relationship on economic growth. The study concludes that institutional quality variables such as control of corruption (COC), government effectiveness (GEF), and regulatory quality (REQ) have limited immediate effects on economic growth, while health expenditure (GEX_HT) also shows no significant impact. The study recommended that given the relationship between health expenditure and corruption, anti-corruption measures should be embedded in public spending programs. This includes deploying digital systems for financial management, enhancing whistleblower protections, and conducting regular audits to prevent fund mismanagement.