Causal effects of macroeconomic predictors on real estate investment trust’s (REIT’s) performance in Nigeria

ABSTRACT The paper examined the causal effects of macroeconomic predictors on the dividend return performance of the Nigerian Real Estate Investment Trusts (N-REITs) the macroeconomic indicators considered was interest rate (INTR), an exchange rate (EXGR), inflation rate (INFR), market capitalisation (MKCP) and all share index (ASI). The study is quantitative based on secondary data collected from various government institutions and annual financial reports of the Nigeria REITs for the study period (2008–2017). Autoregressive-distributed lag (ARDL) and Bound test were used to analyse the data. The result of the Bound test indicated that N-REIT, INTR and ASI with F-statistic values of 11.07, 5.71 and 4.18, respectively, co-integrated with other macroeconomic predictors, especially for the variable vectors. ASI with t-stat and prob. value 2.9491 and 0.0065, respectively, implies statistically significant contribution of ASI to REIT performance in the long run (p < 0.05). Through ECM, the series was good at convergence and nonexplosive series ect (−1): −4.98 and p-value 0.0000, the macroeconomic predictors have significant explanatory power on N-REIT performance in the short run. The no capital gain nature of the N-REIT constitutes a limitation in this study, while the competitive dividend return is the driving force for the study.