Financial development, remittances and access to education in Nigeria

Purpose: This study investigates the effects of financial development, remittances and their interaction on access to education in Nigeria. Methodology: The study used the Autoregressive Distributed Lag and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares technique on time-series data sourced from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Central Bank of Nigeria for the period 1980 to 2021. Results and conclusion: Findings from the analysis reveal that remittances had a statistically significant and positive effect on access to education in the short and long run, unlike financial development, which was negative and non-significant. When both variables were interacted, a negative and non-significant effect was observed suggesting that a developing financial sector does not mediate the positive impact of remittances on education in Nigeria. Additionally, government expenditures on education positively and significantly enhances access to education. Implication of findings: Policy makers and relevant stakeholders in the financial and educational sectors in Nigeria should intensify ways to improve access to formal financial services, develop financial products and services tailored towards education and provide incentives to channel remittances aimed at funding education.