ABSTRACT
This study examined the causality between non-oil export, financial sector development and economic growth in Nigeria. The study employed credit to private sector, total bank deposit, prime lending rate, market capitalization, money market instruments as proxy to measure financial sector development, while GDP was used to capture economic growth, using annual data from 1985 to 2015. All the variables were stationary at first difference using the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Phillip Perron (PP) tests. The Johansen Cointegration test result showed that a long-run relationship between non-oil export, financial sector development and economic growth existed. The Granger causality test indicates that a bi-directional causality runs from total bank deposit, credit to the private sector and market capitalization to economic growth. Also, a unidirectional causality existed between prime lending rate and economic growth. The study shows that out of the five proxy for financial sector development, three showed significant causality with economic growth. These findings therefore imply that a bi-directional relationship exists between financial sector development and economic growth, indicating that a growth in the financial sector will cause same in the economy and vice versa. Finally, the study recommends that the government formulate policies that will enhance credit to the private sector, such as not operating the Treasury Single Account (TSA) Policy in a holistic manner, so that banks will have fund to propel their credit delivery function effectively; considering the fact that the public sector drives the Nigerian economy as it stands now. However for capital market development, investors protection policies should be enhanced in order to strengthen and improve public confidence in the capital market, such as reducing charges for the purchase and sale of securities and reduction of listing requirements for new companies on the exchange.