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Uwe Böwer
- 23 April 2007
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 60Details
- Abstract
- Commodity prices play an important role in economic developments in most of the 24 Western and Central African (WCA) countries covered in this paper. It is confirmed that in the light of rising commodity prices between 1999 and 2005, net oil exporters recorded strong growth rates while net oil-importing countries - albeit benefiting from increases in their major non-oil commodity export prices - displayed somewhat lower growth. For most WCA economies, inflation rates appear less affected by commodity price changes and more determined by exchange rate regimes as well as monetary and fiscal policies. While passthrough effects from international to domestic energy prices were significant, notably in oilimporting countries, second-round effects on overall prices seem limited. Governments of oil-rich countries reacted prudently to windfall revenues, partly running sizable fiscal surpluses. A favourable supply response to rising spending as well as sterilisation efforts and increasing money demand also helped to dampen inflationary pressures. However, substantial excess reserves of commercial banks reflect challenges in financial sector developments and the effectiveness of monetary policy in many WCA countries. Given currently widely used fixed exchange rate regimes, fiscal policy will continue to carry the main burden of macroeconomic adjustment and of sustaining non-inflationary growth, which remains the key policy challenge facing WCA authorities.
- 22 February 2006
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 587Details
- Abstract
- We investigate the key factors underlying business cycle synchronisation in the euro area applying the extreme-bounds analysis. We examine both traditional determinants and new, EMU-specific policy and structural indicators over the past 25 years. Our evidence seems to support the endogeneity hypothesis of the optimum currency area criteria. The implementation of the single market intensified bilateral trade across euro area countries and contributed to higher business cycle symmetry. The introduction of the single currency led to an intensification of intra-industry trade which has become the main driving force ensuring the coherence of business cycles. In addition, the set of robust determinants of business cycle synchronisation has varied over time, depending on the difference phases of the European construction, with fiscal policy, in addition to industrial and financial structures, playing a greater role during the completion of the Single Market, while short-term interest rate differentials and cyclical services have become more determinant since Economic and Monetary Union.
- JEL Code
- C21 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Single Equation Models, Single Variables→Cross-Sectional Models, Spatial Models, Treatment Effect Models, Quantile Regressions
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
F15 : International Economics→Trade→Economic Integration