This study examines the symmetric and threshold effects of fiscal operations on inflation in Nigeria using annual data for the period 1981–2024. Specifically, it evaluates the effects of government revenue, public expenditure, fiscal balance, and public debt on inflation. Secondary data were obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin and the World Bank database. The analysis employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model and threshold regression analysis to estimate both short- and long-run relationships.
 

The findings indicate that government revenue, fiscal balance, and public debt exert significant inflationary effects in both the short and long run, whereas public expenditure has no significant short-run effect but reduces inflation in the long run. Threshold analysis further reveals that public expenditure becomes inflationary when it exceeds 14.56% of GDP, suggesting the existence of a fiscal threshold beyond which additional spending contributes to inflationary pressures.

The results demonstrate that fiscal operations in Nigeria have heterogeneous rather than uniformly beneficial effects on inflation, emphasizing the importance of balancing revenue generation, public expenditure, and debt management. The study concludes that maintaining fiscal variables within sustainable thresholds is essential for preserving macroeconomic stability and supporting long-term economic growth. These findings provide useful evidence for policymakers seeking to improve fiscal management and strengthen inflation control in Nigeria.

Copyright© 2026 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the license CC-BY 4.0., which permits any further distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article’s History: Received 29th of April, 2026; Revised 9th of June, 2026; Accepted 22th of June, 2026; Available online: 30th of June, 2026. Published as research article in the Volume XXI, Summer, Issue 3(93), 2026.

Agbogun, O. E., Ejuvbekpokpo, E. A., Charles-Anyaogu, N, Ajuniyi-Boyo, W. O. & Ezeabasili, V. N. (2026). Econometric Modelling of Symmetric and Threshold Effects of Fiscal Operations on Inflation in Nigeria. Journal of Applied Economic Sciences, Volume XXI, Summer, 3(93), 997-1014. https://doi.org/10.57017/jaes.v21.3(93).16 

Declaration of Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Data Availability Statement: The data supporting the findings of this study were obtained from publicly available sources, including the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and the World Bank World Development Indicators database. The dataset used in the analysis is also provided in Appendix A of this article. Additional information is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Use of Generative AI: AI-assisted tools were used solely for language and grammar improvement. The authors retain full responsibility for the scientific content and conclusions.

Acknowledgment: The authors gratefully acknowledge the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and the World Bank for providing access to the publicly available macroeconomic data used in this study. The authors also appreciate the valuable comments and suggestions received during the peer-review process, which contributed to improving the quality of the manuscript.

Funding Declaration: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. The study was conducted without external financial support.

Ethics Approval Statement: This study is based exclusively on secondary macroeconomic data obtained from publicly available official databases. It does not involve human participants, animals, clinical data, surveys, interviews, or experiments. Consequently, ethical approval and informed consent were not required in accordance with applicable institutional and international research ethics guidelines.