This paper examines and ascertains how the contributions of Richard Cantillon have been relevant to the development of the Nigerian economy. In doing this, the economic thoughts of Richard Cantillon were critically examined in order to see how these issues raised have been affecting the Nigerian economy. Political economy and descriptive approaches were used to x-ray the relevance of Richard Cantillon’s contributions to Nigeria’s development. His contributions among others include: the nature of wealth, social and economic organization of people, wages of labour, theory of values, population problems and the use of gold and silver, barter, prices, circulation of money, interest, foreign trade, foreign exchange and banking and credit. The findings of the study revealed that these contributions are of great relevance to economic development in generally, but have not specifically contributed to the development of Nigerian economy. This is seen in the areas of low per capita income, negative attitude to work, inevitable population problems, persistent increase in prices, high lending interest rate, unfavourable terms of trade, incessant and diversion of public funds into private business rather than the real economy, and without doubt Nigeria has no place in foreign trade. Based on the foregoing, it was concluded that all these ugly trends accounted for the reason why economic development is not at sight in Nigeria. Thus, it was recommended that the monetary authorities should initiate sound monetary policies. Also, these monetary policies should be complemented with effective fiscal policies in order to put the Nigerian economy back to path of economic growth and development.
Keywords: Economic Development, Exchange Rate, Fiscal Policies, Foreign Trade, Interest Rate, Monetary Policies, Money Supply, Wages of Labour
