Openness and Greenness: Pay-Offs or Trade-Offs for the Nigerian Economy

Overtime, income level and level of industrialization are utilized in classifying economies as far as development is concerned. However, in these times where sustainable development is concerned, the level of industrialization may no longer suffice in categorizing countries. Indeed the level of greenness and the extent to which countries exacerbate or preserve the environment vis-à-vis economic activities should be the new order of economic classification. Nigeria, in its post-independence era, pursued the structuralist ideals of an import substitution industrialization policy. But, by 1986, during the economic reforms, the neoliberal policies of an open economy where imports and exports flowed freely were embraced. In view of these divergent policies, this chapter focused on the extent to which these policies have been consistent with the promoting or digressing from the ideals of eco-sustainability. Using causal analysis and interactive regressions within the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, an assessment of the payoffs or otherwise of these openness policies given the period 1970–1985 when Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) policies was in operation as against the 1986–2015 when openness policies came into operation. This is with a view to assessing the prospects for sustainable development as Nigeria keeps its economy open.