Regional Integration in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU): Complementarity or Competition?

This paper analyzes and characterizes the nature of the interactions between countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) over the period 1995–2015. The analysis uses sigma-convergence on the one hand and the Dendrinos-Sonis spatial competition model estimated by the SUR method on the other hand. The results show a lack of convergence of living standards and support the idea of income polarization in space; these results also support the idea of a very poorly integrated region with relatively competitive interrelationships. The paper suggests the acceleration of regional integration in the WAEMU region combined with the implementation of inclusive integration policies that promote each member’s comparative advantage.

11. The institutions of Economic and Monetary Union:

Since 1999, a subset of EU member states—known collectively as the euro area—has delegated exclusive competence for monetary policy to the European Central Bank (ECB), while giving limited powers to the European Commission, ECOFIN, and the Eurogroup in other areas of economic policy. The euro crisis provided the first major test of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), as a sovereign debt crisis spread between member states and threatened to tear the single currency apart. The ECB and two new institutions—the European Stability Mechanism and Euro Summit—helped to keep the euro area together but at significant economic and political cost. EU institutions were better prepared for the initial economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the crisis still produced important institutional changes. The COVID-19 recovery fund Next Generation EU gives the Commission and Council a major new role in economic policy, albeit a temporary one for now. The EMU illustrates three key dimensions of EU institutional politics: the tension between intergovernmental versus supranational institutions, leaders versus followers, and legitimacy versus contestation. It also reveals the explanatory power of new institutionalism among other theoretical perspectives.

Impact of Government Spending In Social Sectors on Economic Growth: A Case Study of West African Economic and Monetary Union Countries

This study aims to investigate the short-run and long-run effects of government’s social expenditure proxies, namely education, and health spending on economic growth during the period 1985 - 2019 in West African Economic and Monetary Union. Using Auto Regressive Distributed Lag model (ARDL) based on panel data, the results of the study reveal that in short-run, government spending in social sectors has no significant impact on economic growth but in long-run the effects of education and health expenditures on the economic growth are significantly positive.

Regional Stock Exchange Development and Economic Growth in the Countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU)

This study used panel data covering 27 years to investigate the causality between regional stock exchange development and economic growth in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries. We performed a homogeneous Granger non-causality with an autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) and Markov-switching analysis, using six indicators for the stock and financial market and six for control. The results showed a close economic relationship between WAEMU countries and causality from the regional stock exchange, which supports the supply leading hypothesis. The causality was confirmed in the short and long run, depending on the variable. The causal relationships that support the demand-driven hypothesis were recorded from the economic growth for four market measurements.

Challenges in Trade openness, Governance and Industrial Productivity in West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) Countries

Inward-looking development strategies can lead to marginalization and slow growth especially for the small African domestic markets. However, when weak economies try to participate in the global economy studies in Southeast Asia show they end with significant challenges. Therefore, this paper analyzed the effects of trade openness on industrial development in West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries. However, due to data availability, the study covered seven countries over the 1996 – 2018 period. The pooled-mean group method was used in the analysis. The results of the analysis showed that, in the long run, trade openness did not benefit the development of the industrial sector in all the countries studied. However, in the short run, the results revealed the specificities of each country. These short-run results showed that trade openness has a positive and significant effect on the industry added values observed in countries such as Burkina Faso, Niger and Togo. The results also showed that government inefficiency has a negative impact on the development of the industrial sector in the long -run for all the countries studied. Furthermore, the indicator capturing the degree of freedom of corruption had a positive impact on the development of the industrial sector in the short or long run. Therefore, active engagement with the forces of globalization need strategic approaches in their integration in developing countries.