Empirical Exposition of Monetary Policy under Fixed and Managed Float Exchange Rate Regime: Any Lesson for Nigeria

Abstract

This paper empirically investigated the relationship between monetary aggregates and the exchange rate under alternative exchange rate regimes in Nigeria. Using data spanning 1961 to 2013 to estimate vector auto-regressive (VAR) models, a number of findings ensued. One, the impulse response functions (IRFS) showed that monetary aggregates were responsive to exchange rate shocks. However, this effect was found to be closely linked with the underlying exchange rate regime. Two, the variance decompositions (VDs) indicated that exchange rate shocks had no significant weight as there was no impact recorded on inflation, interest rate and money supply after one year under the fixed regime. Third, the corresponding VDs under the flexible regime showed that the effect of exchange rate on the monetary aggregates was more significant, especially in the long-run. A key policy implication of the foregoing results was that domestic economic management policies should be proactively orchestrated to better align the objectives of exchange rate policy with broader macroeconomic goals.