FINANCIAL DEEPENING AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

Unavailability of finance is often argued to be the main challenge of entrepreneurship. However, governments of both developed and developing nations have been making concerted efforts to provide the means by which entrepreneurs get access to affordable finance. Therefore, this study examines the association between financial deepening and entrepreneurship development in Nigeria within a period of 1984 to 2014. The research design of the study is correlational because it relates dependent and independent variables. The study used multiple regression as a technique of data analysis. The results show that all the proxies of financial deepening have significant impact on credit to SMEs. Thus, money supply, net domestic credit and public sector credit are positively and strongly significant at 1% indicating that financial deepening plays a prominent role in developing entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Therefore, it is recommended among others that government at all levels including regulators of the Nigerian financial system especially CBN should be formulating policies of making finance available and accessible to entrepreneurs in Nigeria for development and growth.