Title: Threshold cointegration and interest rate pass-through during the pre- and post-banking consolidation in Nigeria: are there asymmetries?

Authors: Alhaji Jibrilla Aliyu; Normaz Wana Ismail

Addresses: Department of Economics, Faculty of Art, Social and Management Sciences, Adamawa State University, Mubi, Nigeria ' Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

Abstract: This paper empirically examines the interest rate pass-through in Nigeria using the cointegration and threshold adjustment suggested by Enders and Siklos. The focus is on the pass-through of the central bank policy rates to the commercial banks' lending rates during the pre- and post-bank consolidation in the country. The estimated results indicate that, changes in the policy rate are transmitted completely to loans rate in the long run during the pre-cosolidation but incomplete during the post-consolidation period. The results also show evidence for asymmetric momentum threshold autoregression models during the both the pre-and post-consolidation periods. However, while the estimated nonlinear error correction models exhibit downward rigidity in lending rates during the pre-consolidation, a contrary finding was obtained during the post-consolidation period, which indicates upward rigidity of loans rates. Finally, the study discusses the potential implication of these findings on the banking sector and offers direction for future policy.

Keywords: banking consolidation; liberalisation; central banks; bank policy rates; lending rates; threshold autoregressive models; Nigeria; interest rates; banking industry.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBAAF.2016.080479

International Journal of Banking, Accounting and Finance, 2016 Vol.7 No.2, pp.172 - 193

Received: 20 Aug 2015
Accepted: 22 Jul 2016
Published online: 25 Nov 2016 *

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