AIKPITANYI, IYOBOSA

Nigeria’s economy has been characterized by persistent macroeconomic instability, evident in its high and often volatile inflation rates and alarming unemployment figures. Misery Index in Nigeria, with an empirical focus on Hanke’s Misery Index, over the period 1992–2024. Grounded in the Quantity Theory of Money and the Phillips Curve, the study investigates how changes in money supply, exchange rate volatility, government expenditure, and oil prices influence economic distress. Using annual time series data, the research applies unit root tests to assess stationarity, correlation analysis to explore inter-variable relationships, and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to capture both short- and long-run dynamics. The ARDL bounds test indicates no evidence of long-run cointegration among the variables. Empirical findings reveal that increases in money supply significantly elevate the Misery Index, while exchange rate volatility does not have a significant impact. Lagged government expenditure reduces economic distress, and increase in oil price have a negative but marginally insignificant effect on the Misery Index. The study concludes that coordinated monetary and fiscal policies, informed by both inflation-output trade-offs and money supply considerations, are essential for stabilizing economic welfare in Nigeria.