Abstract
This paper examined the fiscal response of government to oil price volatility in Nigeria during the period 1970-2013. This is because no study has analysed the peculiar fiscal behaviour of the government given the unpredictable nature of oil prices. Yet, government fiscal activities had significantly determined and shaped the growth path of the economy. The multivariate vector Auto regression model was explored for the empirical analysis. Our findings showed that real oil prices had driven government expenditure dynamics and a long run relationship between real oil prices and government spending, non-oil growth, inflation and discount rate differential exist; and no asymmetric effect of oil price shocks on the government spending. However, these results are robust to different non-linear transformation of the real oil prices and inclusion of additional variables. Since oil price is highly volatile, it is advised that the government diversify the sources of foreign exchange inflows.