Foreign Exchange Market Intervention and Exchange Rate Stability: An Empirical Anayisis for Nigeria

The essential roles played by exchange rate on general macroeconomic stability has attracted the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to intervene in the foreign exchange market, in order to smoothen exchange rate volatility, among other goals. The study to examine the impact of foreign exchange market intervention on stability of exchange rate in Nigeria with a monthly time series data from 2000M1 to 2020M12. The research employs the use of Autoregressive Distributive Lag approach (ARDL) of analysis. The result indicates that the currency interventions policy of the CBN in Nigeria is effective and exerts significant impact on the exchange rate stability of Naira in both in the short and long-run within the period under investigation. We, therefor, recommend that the monetary authority should continue to employ the usage of stock of foreign reserves in supporting the exchange rate by increasing funding of the operations in foreign exchange market.