The Statistical Analysis of the Expenditure and Income of Nigeria in Relation to Poverty
CHAPTER ONE
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
This study is aimed at looking at possible areas Nigerians can be educated to increase their level of savings.
The following are the cardinal aims and objectives of this research work:
- To educate Nigerians on the relationship of their expenditures to income with a view to enhancing their saving habit.
- Recommending solutions of improving Nigeria’s economy at large.
- Identifying major causes of excessive expenditures of Nigerians.
- Determining the effect of income earned to expenditure.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
Poverty remains a mufti-dimensional concept, as it does not lend itself to a single, universally accepted definition (UNECA, 2005). Hence, the literature is replete with definitions reflecting the peculiar perceptions of various researchers and policy makers, as well as the circumstances prevailing in different regions of the world (Igbinedion and Igbatayo, 2007). For instance, many analysts conceive poverty in terms of individual or family insufficiency of assets and income. Atolaye (1997) and Englama Bamidele (1997) conceptualized poverty as the “lack of basic necessities”. Along this basic needs approach, poverty can be conceived of as absolute poverty or relative poverty (UNIDO, 1990). Inequality,on the otherhand, implies the dispersion of a distribution whether one is considering income, consumption or some other welfare indicators or attributes. Although conceptually distinct, income inequality is often studied as part of the broad analysis covering poverty and welfare. Thus, inequality is a broader concept than poverty because it is defined over a whole distribution (Litchfied, 1999). The pattern of income distribution has been of great concern to economists for a long time. Since Atkinson (1970), most questions about the measurement of inequality have been formulated using the explicit logic of social choice theory. Pigou (1912) and Dalton (1920), proposed a Pigou- Dalton transfer principle. This principle opines that inequality increases when there is a transfer of income from a poorer to a richer person. Most measure of inequality in literature satisfies this principle. Furthermore, Dalton (1920) proposed the population principle of income inequality measurement, which observes that inequality measures are invariant to replications of the populations. This implies that, merging two identical distributions will not alter the level of inequality. However, following the works of Kuznets (1955, 1966), on the relationship between development and income inequality, many development economists have been inspired to find the major sources of income inequality. In this regard, Datt and Ravallion (1992), proposed a method that decomposed poverty change into income redistribution, income growth and a residual component, otherwise known as the “Black box”. Kakwani (1997) adopted an axiomatic approach to decompose poverty change into their growth and redistribution components. On the factors that could possibly widen or reduce income distribution in a country, Alayande (2003), decomposed income inequality in Nigeria using a regression-based approach as proposed by (Morduch and Sinclair,2002). With 1996/1997 data, the Gini decomposition method revealed that primary and post-secondary educational attainments are important in reducing income inequality, while the number of unemployed persons in the households contributed positively to income inequality. Baye (2005), using Shapley (1953) value for assigning entitlement in distributive analysis, assessed the within and between sector contributions to changes in poverty levels in Cameroon between 1984 and 1996. It was found that the within sector effect disproportionately accounted for increase in poverty, but the between sector contributions in both rural and semi-urban areas increase poverty On the relevance of income inequality to economic development, efforts can be judged by the spread of researchers that have kept close focus at it since the past few decades. Specifically, the 1990s witnessed resurgence in theoretical and empirical attention by development economists to the distribution of income and wealth (Atkinson and Bourguignon, 2000). This is because high level of income inequality produces unfavourable environment for economic growth and development (Birdsall, 2005).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
- Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to examine the income and expenditure of Nigerians in relation to poverty level
- Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
Primary source and Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain the statistical analysis of the expenditure and income of Nigeria in relations to poverty. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of the expenditure and income of Nigeria in relations to poverty
Summary
This study was on the statistical analysis of the expenditure and income of Nigeria in relations to poverty. Four objectives were raised which included: To educate Nigerians on the relationship of their expenditures to income with a view to enhancing their saving habit, recommending solutions of improving Nigeria’s economy at large, identifying major causes of excessive expenditures of Nigerians, determining the effect of income earned to expenditure . In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of national bureau of statistics, Abuja. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made statisticians, administrative officers, accountants and junior staff was used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
This study has shown once again that poverty is not just the result of insufficient expenditure as traditionally believed. Rather, it is the result of a combination of social, economic and political factors. The fuzzy set identified lack of access to good water as the leading deprivation indicator for the existence of poverty and equally gave a higher value for the head count index.
Recommendation
- In the bid to achieve poverty reduction through public spending, the annual budget by the federal government should be considered with utmost care so as to enhance the adequate funding of the agricultural sector
- Effort should be made by the Government to see that rural farmers benefit the opportunities employment and boost food production, thereby reducing poverty.
- The CBN can as well advise commercial banks to allocate a reasonable percent of their lending to surrounding her expenditures as this will also contribute to Poverty Reduction in Nigeria.
- There is need to understand the endemic problems of the agricultural sector.
- This will help to ascertain agriculture so as to reduce poverty in the society.
REFERENCES
- Amin,R (1994) “Poor women’s participation if Income-Generating Projects and their Fertility Regulation in Rural Bangladesh: Evidence from a Recent Survey” World Development, 22(4), pp .555- 565.
- Anderson, J, (1990) “Does Regulation Improve Small Farmers” Access to Brazilian Rural Credit” Journal of Development Economics, 33, pp 67-87
- Barham, B (1996) “Credit Constraints Credit Unions and Small scale producers in Guatemala” World Development, 24(5), pp 793-806.
- Csaki, C (1998) “The Agricultural Transition in Central and Eastern Europe and Former USSR”, World Bank, Washington D.C. Duong, P (2002) “Rural Development finance in Vietnam, A micro econometric Analysis of Household surveys” World Development, 30 (2), pp 319 – 335
- Falusi, A.O (1995) “An Overview of Nigeria’s Rural Economy: Status, Problems and Potentials” NCEMA workshop, paper, August 20- 25, 1995 lbadan.
- Feder G (1990) “The Relationship between Credit and Productivity in Chinese Agriculture: A Micro-economic Model of Disequilibria” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 72 (5) pp 1151-1157.
- Gujarati D.N (2004) Theory of Economics United State Military Academy West point, Mc Graw-Hill Inc Book Co-Singapore.
- Juppelli, T.1990, “Who is Credit Constrained in the US. Economy?” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, CV (1): pp 219-234
- Knopf, E. and Schoney, R. (1993); “An Evaluation of Farm Financial Benchmarks and Loan Success/Failure”: The case of the Agricultural Credit Corporation of Saskatchewan Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 41pp 61-69.
