This study is an empirical examination of the impact of price instability on unemployment and economic growth in Nigeria between 1986 to 2015. Main variables used in this study are unemployment, inflation rate (proxy for consumer price index), GDP growth rates, Foreign Direct Investment, Investment (proxied by Gross Fix Capital Formation) Interest Rate, Imports, Exports, Exchange Rate and Per Capita Income. The sources of data are statistical bulletins published by World Bank Development Indicators (WBDI) and Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin 2015 respectively. There are three regression equations in which the relationship between dependent and independent variables have been tested. The first model is explaining the effect of inflation or price instability and other macroeconomic variables on GDP in Nigeria. The second model explains the effects of unemployment and other economic variables on real GDP while the third model is formulated to describe the effect of macroeconomic variables on unemployment in Nigeria. To achieve these objectives, stationarity tests were conducted with simple Ordinary Least Square using E-views version 8 software. Results from Augmented Dickey Fuller and Philips-Perron unit root test reveals that all the series in the models were stationary, with evidence of a unique long run relationship among the variables in the model. Findings from the OLS regression output reveals the coefficients of imports, exports, exchange rate and manufacturing growth rate as having negative effect on the key dependent variables of gdp-growth rate, price instability and unemployment rate. On the contrary, the coefficients of investment, per capita income and foreign direct investment show positive relationship with the dependent variables in the model. Major policy recommendations of this study are as follows: Government should embark on policies that will reduce the number of imported goods drastically and encourage local production and consumption to encourage domestic industries. This will help reduce unemployment and inflation in Nigeria and improve the gross domestic product figures greatly. Furthermore, over the years, foreign partners in Nigeria has had cause to repatriate their investible funds back to their shores as Nigeria increasingly became unsafe destinations for businesses owing to streams of violence and kidnappings across the country. Government should therefore engage the various agitators and stakeholders across the nation such as the Niger-Delta militants, IPOD/MASSOB and Fulani herdsmen with a view to finding lasting solutions to their demand for genuine peace to be entrenched in the polity. This is one sure way to encourage more foreign inflow of capital for economic growth.
Keywords: OLS, Price Instability, Unemployment, economic growth
