Saturday, October 15, 2016: 10:00 AM
Nigeria rebased her gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013 and overtook South Africa, thus becoming the largest economy in Africa. Nigeria’s GDP before the rebasing covered three major sectors – agriculture, crude oil and gas, and trade which constituted 85% of the GDP. Now, these only cover 54% while new sectors received a significant share of the GDP. They include telecommunications, real estate, manufacturing, construction, and entertainment. A visit to Johannesburg or any city in South Africa demonstrates superior infrastructure when compared to Nigeria. Moreover, South Africa’s manufacturing sector is much more organized than that of Nigeria. This study seeks to examine development indicators between 1986 and 2014 for both countries and truly examine their competitive advantages. More specifically the variables include GDP; GDP per capita; GNI; agriculture value added (annual % growth); industry value added (annual % growth); trade (% of GDP); telecommunication investment with private participation (current US$); manufacturing value added (annual % growth); GDP deflator (base year varies by country); total unemployment (% of total labour force); foreign direct investment (FDI); inflation, consumer price (annual %); official exchange rate (LCU per US$ period average; and international tourism, expenditure (current US$).
Ordinary least squares and analysis of variance will be used as estimation techniques and multiple regression will be used to test the formulated hypotheses. The results will be evaluated using: t-test, p-value, F Stat, the coefficient of multiple determination and Durbin-Watson. This research is expected to create a path for other methodologies in determining preferred ways to measure southern economies with consideration to social ontology.
Keywords: GDP, competitive advantage, regression analysis