Impact of Fiscal Deficit on Nigeria's Macroeconomic Performance.

Despite the status of being the largest economy in Africa, Nigeria is being heralded with various macroeconomic issues ranging from rising unemployment, double digit inflation and dwindling economic fortunes. Policy makers have pointed out the need for improved fiscal deficit but despite this, the country’s economic performance is still very low as she is yet to fully recover from her worst economic recession in 20years in 2016. The objective of the study therefore is to examine the impact of fiscal deficit on the macroeconomic performance of Nigeria especially as it relates with economic growth, inflation rate and unemployment rates in Nigeria for the period 1980-2016. The data was subjected to Unit Root, and Cointegration tests to confirm the long run relationship among the variables. From the Vector Auto Regressive (VAR) model result, it was observed that government fiscal deficit has a significant impact on the Nigerian macroeconomic performance especially on inflation. In the same vein, money supply has a positive and significant impact on the Nigerian macro economy especially as it relates with economic growth. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended among other things that government should embark on inflation-targeting so as to achieve a none inflationary rate of money supply for the economy and in turn achieve the macroeconomic goal of price stability for the country.