Publications

Cet ouvrage analyse l’intégration des pays membres de l’Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine (UEMOA) dans l’économie mondiale au prisme d’une grille de lecture développée par l’Observatoire de la compétitivité durable (OCD) de la Fondation pour les Études et Recherches sur le Développement International (FERDI). Elle se base, notamment, sur l’étude des facteurs de vulnérabilité structurelle et d’attractivité des territoires (taille du marché, infrastructures, gouvernance). Si l’UEMOA apparaît, dans l’ensemble, plus vulnérable au regard de la moyenne continentale, une ligne de fracture semble se dessiner entre les pays sahéliens et côtiers, dont la façade maritime facilite l’intégration. Cette disparité s’exemplifie particulièrement à travers l’étude des chaînes de valeur du Niger et de la Côte d’Ivoire, pays moteur dans la croissance économique de l’UEMOA.

We study the role of undervaluation of currency exchange rates in triggering African product export surges. Over the period 1995–2017, 96 episodes are identified for 41 African countries from a basket of their primary and manufactured exported goods (149 products, 4-digit HS code). We compute country-product specific real exchange rate misalignments, that allow testing the hypothesis that undervaluation drives competitiveness and thus export surges. The complementary log–log model confirms that product-specific undervaluation promotes the occurrence of surge episodes. This effect proves robust to the way we define export episodes, the introduction of covariates in the model and the use of the Relogit as an alternative estimator for rare events.

The US-China relationship is arguably the most important bilateral relationship of the 21st century. This column explores the link between trade imbalance and US sentiment toward China, and shows that US communities more exposed to import competition from China experienced a greater deterioration in sentiment. The trade-induced US sentiment toward China is broad-based, encompassing political, military, and national security issues. These findings suggest competition over trade may have important geopolitical implications through their effect on local sentiment. 

This article empirically demonstrates that real currency depreciations increase CO2 emissions in sub-Saharan Africa, and that this effect is attenuated by an increase in per capita income. The econometric results are consistent with the predictions of a simple theoretical model in which the carbon intensity of the tradable sector is higher than that of the non-tradable sector, the relative share of the tradable sector increases with real depreciation, and the carbon intensity differential between the two sectors is a decreasing function of output per capita. The African specificity with regard to the polluting impact of depreciation is empirically robust, and seems to be linked to the small size of Africa’s manufacturing sector.

This paper examines the effect of integration into global value chains (GVCs) on the structural transformation of sub-Saharan African economies. Using a sample of 46 countries observed over the 1995–2018 period, we evaluate a panel-data cointegration model using the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FM-OLS) method. Overall, our results show that integration into GVCs contributes significantly to the structural transformation of the economies considered. However, this effect is counteracted by the low value added of exports. The results obtained remain globally stable when controlling for the different dimensions of participation in GVCs, but also for the specificities related to the African sub-regions. Moreover, they remain robust to changes in structural transformation indicators and to the use of competing estimators. We suggest improving the contribution of GVCs to structural transformation by taking into account and valuing exports with higher local added value.