ABSTRACT

The study investigates empirically the impact of Exchange Rate on Balance of Payment in Nigeria. The broad objective of this study is; to determine the impact of exchange rate on Balance of Payment in Nigeria within the periods of 1981 to 2015. Annual time series data on Exchange Rate, Trade Openness, Import, Export and Balance of Payment from the Central Bank of Nigeria covering the period 1981 – 2015 were utilized. A model was constructed to incorporate Balance of Payment as the dependent variable, and exchange rate, Import, Export and trade openness as the independent variables and tested using the Ordinary least Square (OLS) Methods. The Stationarity (Unit roots) status of the series was examined using the appropriate statistics. Some of the assumptions of the OLS models were also tested to avoid spurious regression. The granger causality test was also conducted to determine the directions of causality. However, the result of this study indicates that exchange rate and export has positive relationships with balance of payment in Nigeria; the result also indicated that import and trade openness has negative relationships with balance of payment in Nigeria. The study recommends that the government should as much as possible encourage the production of most of the imported goods in the country by the local industries as well as encourage import substitutions.