African Development Review-Revue Africaine De Developpement最新文献

Recent research on international trade suggests that economic development and growth occur as countries gain knowledge and learn to produce and export more sophisticated products. This study examines the effect of trade facilitation on economic complexity in selected African countries over the period 2004–2017. It uses four indicators of trade facilitation capturing physical infrastructure, information, and communication technology (ICT), business, and regulatory environment as well as border, and transport efficiency. The empirical analysis using ordinary least square, and the two-stage least square estimators shows that effective trade facilitation reform targeted particularly at improving ICT as well as border, and transport efficiency enhances economic complexity. The results remain consistent when an alternative estimation strategy is used. These findings offer scope for a reminder that reforms aimed at simplifying border procedures should be implemented and accelerated in African countries.

This paper contributes to the emerging literature on the economic impacts of the Russia–Ukraine war by estimating the effects of that war on FCFA-denominated sovereign bond yields and spreads for the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries. Using ordinary least squares regressions on monthly panel data from January 2020 to December 2022, we found three key results. First, the Russia–Ukraine war significantly increased long-term government bonds but had no impact on short-term sovereign bond yields. Second, the Russia–Ukraine war raised sovereign bond spreads in WAEMU countries. These results suggest that WAEMU countries may consider reducing sovereign long-term bond issuances and exploiting alternative financing sources, such as concessional financing, until the war and its corollary of global economic and financial imbalances are resolved. Finally, we found that the Central Bank of West African States's policy rate hikes increase governments' borrowing costs. Given this impact, we recommend complementing monetary policy with nonmonetary and fiscal policy measures to ease inflationary pressure from the Russia–Ukraine war. This approach may help mitigate the upward pressure driven by monetary policy tightening on sovereign borrowing costs in the WAEMU government securities markets.

This paper examines the role of inequality on the link between governance and economic growth in 44 African countries with data running from 2008 to 2018. Using a system GMM and the generalized least square (GLS) estimators, we establish that the effects of governance on growth are rightly conditioned by inequality. The GMM and GLS estimates portray positive effects of inequality on growth, but only the GMM estimates are significant. For both estimators, the effect of institutions on economic growth is positive and significant. However, inequality retards growth when embedded in selected institutions, which implies a substitution relationship between institutions and inequality on growth. The turning point beyond which inequality begins to contribute negatively to economic growth ranges between 34% and 49% based on the GMM estimates or 40.15% and 44.5% for the GLS analysis depending on the institutional indicator used. Therefore, institutions can only be effective in economic development if income inequality levels of not less than 0.34 and not more than 0.49 are maintained to ensure that inequality does not negate growth. Policy makers of African countries should ensure better income distribution alongside good institutions to achieve sustainable economic growth in the region.

This paper examines the effectiveness of macroprudential regulations in promoting bank stability and the credit market in the Kenyan financial system. The study applies a panel estimation methodology on bank-level and non-bank credit data for the period 2001–2021 to achieve its objectives. The study reveals three key findings. First, overall, the banking sector remains resilient as evidenced by the S-score stability measure. Second, liquidity-related, capital-based, and asset-side macroprudential regulations lower bank stability. Third, there is evidence of dampened bank credit and domestic leakage associated with macroprudential regulations. The paper concludes that macroprudential regulations are ineffective in promoting stability and the credit market. This paper recommends policymakers to use caution when implementing macroprudential conditions. This is to balance out the policy objectives of banking sector stability and access to finance. Additionally, policy makers should be mindful when implementing macroprudential measures that may cause banks to adjust their behavior, leading to domestic credit leakages and cross-border spillovers.