ASSESSMENT OF GREEN FINANCE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH AND INCOME INEQUALITY IN NIGERIA

Abstract

This study examines the impact of green finance on economic growth and income inequality in Nigeria over the period 1990-2024. The motivation for the study arises from the increasing global emphasis on green finance as a tool to curb the effects of climate change and promotion of economic growth that is beneficial to all and this raises the need to understand its macroeconomic and distributional implications in a developing economy like Nigeria. Specifically, the study investigates the effect of green finance on economic growth and income inequality while incorporating key control variables such as inflation, unemployment, foreign direct investment, labour force participation, and Trade openness. The study employs annual time-series data and adopts the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach and a robustness test to confirm results. The empirical findings reveal that green finance has a significant but negative impact on economic growth in the short and long-run and also a positive and statistically significant effect on income inequality in both the short run and long run. The robustness test revealed that a higher level of renewable energy consumption reduces income inequality in Nigeria. Overall, the study suggests that the green finance sector in Nigeria is still at a developmental stage and may involve transitional costs, inefficiencies, and delayed returns. Additionally, the results indicate that macro-economic indicators have mixed effects on economic growth and income inequality, It recommends the promotion of inclusive green finance policies, strengthening of regulatory frameworks, and improved access to green funding for small and medium enterprises and low-income groups to ensure that green finance contributes to both economic growth and equitable income distribution.