Purpose - A spectre is hunting embryonic African monetary zones: the EMU crisis. This paper assesses real, monetary and fiscal policy convergence within the proposed WAM and EAM zones. The introduction of common currencies in West and East Africa is facing stiff challenges in the timing of...

Purpose - A spectre is hunting embryonic African monetary zones: the EMU crisis. This paper assesses real and monetary policy convergence within the proposed WAM and EAM zones. The introduction of common currencies in West and East Africa is facing stiff challenges in the timing of monetary...

While the severe global recession seems to be bottoming out and the global economic outlook is turning cautiously optimistic, the negative impact of the crisis on many African countries continues to deepen. The crisis has hit Africa with a lag, interrupting at best, and ending at worst, the...

This chapter highlights key shortcomings and failures of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union - essentially the most advanced case of regional integration in the world, inspiring numerous other initiatives including among developing countries, but fatally flawed and limited. The European...

This policy paper underscores the importance of credible currency regimes and their macroeconomic underpinnings for stability in financial systems and long-term economic convergence of developing and emerging market economies. It suggests that for developing regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa,...