Non-Resident Holdings of Domestic Debt in Nigeria: Internal or External Driven?

Download or read book Non-Resident Holdings of Domestic Debt in Nigeria: Internal or External Driven? written by Amr Hosny and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2020-05-22 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreign holdings of domestic debt instruments in Nigeria have been increasing. Using data over 2007M1-2019M1, we show that, on average, global factors (global interest rates, oil prices) seem to carry more weight than domestic factors (treasury bills rate and domestic risk) in foreign portfolio invetsors’ decisions in Nigeria. Specifically, we show that foreign participation is, in the long run, positively correlated with oil prices and profitable rates of return on local-currency instruments, but negatively correlated with exchange rate depreciation pressures. In the short run, oil prices, opportunity cost of funds and perception of Nigeria-specific risks also play a role. These results highlight the volatile short-term nature of such flows and call for a package of policy reforms to attract longer term direct investments.