This paper aims at explaining why the CFA countries have successfully maintained a currency union for several decades, despite failing to meet many of optimum currency area criteria. We suggest that the CFA zone, while not optimal, has been at least sustainable. We test this sustainability...

The aim of this paper is to analyse the adjustment process of real effective exchange rates towards their equilibrium level for the cfa zone countries over the period 1985-2007. Accordingly, we estimate a panel smooth transition error correction model in order to take into account non-linear...