This paper assesses the adequacy and effectiveness of the WAEMU fiscal framework along three pillars that have proven to effectively support fiscal discipline in monetary unions-common fiscal rules (including adequacy of numerical ceilings as well as elements of design and enforcement), shared...

In this study, we assess the size of the government wage bill and employment in the member countries of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union and their implications for fiscal sustainability and the adequacy of public service delivery. Over the period 2005 to 2015 their wage bill (as a percentage...

The stance of fiscal policy in CEMAC and WAEMU is strongly influenced by fiscal effort in the previous period. This persistence underscores the risks of a procyclical fiscal policy stance, given these countries'' high degree of dependence on primary commodities and exposure to terms of trade...

The main tasks of central banks are to secure price and financial stability. These objectives can, in times of crises, conflict with one another, and the central bank may have to renounce one of them in order to secure the other. In a monetary union, this trade-off can be exacerbated by the...

Could a West African monetary union (either of the non-CFA countries, or all ECOWAS members) be an effective ""agency of restraint"" on fiscal policies? We discuss how monetary union could affect fiscal discipline and the arguments for explicit fiscal restraints considered in the European...

The fiscal position of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) has deteriorated significantly in recent years, resulting in sharp increases in public debt. The sustainability of public debt is examined using the public sector budget constraint to derive the maximum public-debt-to-GDP ratio...

This paper studies the nature of the shocks affecting the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU), and examines whether a hypothetical Eastern Caribbean fiscal insurance mechanism could insure member countries of the union against asymmetric national income shocks. The empirical results suggest...

We assess the macroeconomic effects of a sovereign restructuring in a small economy belonging to a monetary union by simulating a dynamic general equilibrium model. In line with the empirical evidence, we make the following three key assumptions. First, sovereign debt is held by domestic agents...

Exchange rate behavior is analyzed in the context of a stochastic rational expectations model in which there are random shocks to the price setting mechanism and in which the authorities choose to impose either nominal or real exchange rate bands. Results are compared to those which emerge from...