Changes in Head of Government and Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Nigeria

This study investigates the phenomena that dynamics in macroeconomic variables such as real output growth can be explained by changes or the removal of the person in charge of government, a phenomenon termed, government turnover. Using the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average model (ARIMAX), the findings show that changes in head of government did not significantly explain variations in Nigeria‟s aggregate economy. In addition, changes in head of government correlated negatively with shifts in the economy. The political economy implication is that frequent changes in government (a measure of the extent of political instability) ca n affect negatively the aggregate economy. On the other hand, the insignificance of the political dummy variable measuring government turnover reflects either that: First, political shifts is a negligible source of fluctuation, secondly, that the Nigerian economy is resilient to absorb readily politically induced shocks and thirdly, that changes in head of government has an indirect impact on the economy