The CFA franc devaluation on 11 January 1994 stands out as the most significant reform within the Franc Zone system since political independences of former African French colonies in 1960, yet a topic shrouded into profound taboo. So far, the economic literature has failed to draw any connection...

In this paper we use data from 17 African nations in order to investigate the hypothesis that monetary union - represented in this case by the CFA Franc Zone - augments the extent of macroeconomic integration. The paper covers a number of dimensions of integration including the volume of...

Purpose - A major lesson of the EMU crisis is that serious disequilibria in a monetary union result from arrangements not designed to be robust to a variety of shocks. With the specter of this crisis looming substantially and scarring existing monetary zones, the present study has complemented...

Purpose - A major lesson of the EMU crisis is that serious disequilibria result from regional monetary arrangements not designed to be robust to a variety of shocks. The purpose of this paper is to assess these disequilibria within the CEMAC, UEMOA and CFA zones. Design/methodology/approach - In...

This paper examines whether the BCEAO has made use of the various policy instruments at its disposal for steering credit in the individual CFA zone member countries to complement interest rate policy at the zone level. We estimate whether private sector credit has responded systematically to...

This paper estimates a gravity model of trade to evaluate the trade effects of the Euro on sectoral trade within the Euro Zone, the CFA Franc Zone and between the Eurozone and the CFA Franc Zone, when CFA countries acquired fixed rates against the non-francophone Eurozone members. The formation...