Effective Monetary Policy as a Recipe for Macroeconomic Stability in Nigeria

Abstract

The basic objective of this paper was to investigate effective monetary policy as a recipe for macroeconomic stability in Nigeria, using annual time series data from 1981 to 2014. The paper employs OLS methodology with all the BLUE assumption. The results show that considering the magnitude, 1% increase in RGDP (proxy for economic growth) is brought about by 0.86% increase in narrow money supply (M1), 0.63% increase in broad money supply (M2), 258% decrease in inflation rate (INFLARATE), 1276.3% increase in lending rate (LEDRATE), and 143.9% increase in gross fixed capital formation. This implies that an increase in lending rate and other related variables will lead to a significant increase in real GDP, proxy for economic growth in Nigeria. The estimated value of R² (goodness of fit) of 0.67 or 67% shows that 67% systematic variation in Real GDP is caused by variation in narrow money supply, broad money supply, inflation rate, lending rate, and gross fixed capital formation. This indicates that indeed, monetary policy has an effect on macroeconomic stability in Nigeria. The study seems to suggest that concerted efforts should be made by the government to focus on increment in narrow and broad money supplies which will aid in the financing of the country’s monetary growth, balancing the price increase, stimulating increased spending, and further enhancing the country’s macroeconomic variables.