Monetary Policy and its Effects on Inflation in Nigeria 2009 - 2014

Master's Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: 4.24, Wilberforce Island (School of Post Graduate Studies), course: Banking and Finance, language: English, abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of monetary policy variables that were consistently adopted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on the inflation rate in Nigeria for the period 2009-2014. Two key issues where addressed; one, whether there was a significant relationship between the policy variables adopted and inflation. Two, whether the combined impact of all these variables adopted, was significant on the inflation rate. Data was sourced from the CBN¿s statistical bulletin 2014, from the website of the CBN and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method was adopted because of its best linear unbiased estimation (BLUE) property. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller test for stationarity, showed that the variables were all stationary at order one (1). Cointegration test also revealed that a long run relationship exists among the variables. The results show that apart from the MPR, all other policy variables were significant at the 5% level of significance (the monetary policy horizon) and this addressed the first key issue highlighted. For the second key issue, the estimation model displayed that all the explanatory variables adopted by the CBN (as used in this research) accounted for 61% of the variation in the inflation rate as regards its rise or drop. Hence, the combined effect of all the variables adopted by the CBN did reduce the inflation rate, as the monetary policy shocks did get traction on the economy in arriving at the policy trajectory of an inflation band of 6-9%. The CBN should constantly examine its policy environment to determine the instrument mix optimization that best serves its prime purpose of macroeconomic stability, especially when its inflation target is achieved.