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An inquiry into the impact of external and domestic borrowings is considered timely for Nigeria, given the growing public debt profile amid deteriorating human capital development. Using data from 1990 to 2021, the study estimates the effects of domestic and external debts on Nigeria's human capital development. The study employed the fully modified ordinary least squares and canonical cointegration regression as the main estimation technique and the robustness check, respectively. The study discovered that domestic and external debt, economic growth and debt servicing exert positive and significant influence on human capital development in Nigeria while environmental pollution has an inverse and significant impact on human capital development in Nigeria. Premised on the outcomes, policy suggestions aimed at enhancing human capital development in Nigeria have been put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether knowledge causes economic growth in Africa's two leading economies, Nigeria and South Africa. Using the Vector Autoregressive and Vector Error Correction approaches, the findings show cointegration among the variables. The speed of convergence of the variables to their long‐term mean values is relatively higher for South Africa than for Nigeria. In the short run, it is observed that knowledge unidirectionally Granger causes growth for Nigeria, whereas bidirectional causality is observed for South Africa. The higher correlation between knowledge and growth in South Africa reflects the success of greater investment in education. Nigeria must increase investment in education and modern infrastructure to converge to South Africa's growth trajectory. Moreover, for Nigeria, (1) knowledge unidirectionally Granger cause growth, (2) evidence of bidirectional causality flow is apparent between trade, the economic incentive, and growth, and (3) health unidirectionally Granger cause knowledge. As for South Africa (1) there is bidirectional causality between knowledge, trade openness, and growth, whereas investment and economic incentive, unidirectionally Granger causes growth, (2) investment, trade openness, and health unidirectionally Granger cause knowledge, and (3) economic incentive unidirectionally Granger cause trade openness. In conclusion, this paper argues that a transformed education system can provide the knowledge base essential for promoting and sustaining economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]