 The Road to Regional Integration in Africa: Macroeconomic Convergence and Performance in COMESAJournal of African Economies, 2006, vol. 15, issue 2, 212-250 Abstract: COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) aims at establishing a currency union by 2025. To this end, a policy harmonisation programme and a set of convergence criteria have been set up. A number of projects to foster trade, economic and financial integration have also been launched. Using time-series and panel econometrics, this paper provides evidence on different dimensions of the integration process: macroeconomic policy convergence, shocks symmetry, per-capita income catching-up. Highlights are as follows. The monetary policy stance mildly converges across countries; fiscal stabilisation is however still problematic in several member states. Trade integration is low, but for a bulk of countries in the region there is evidence that shocks are somewhat symmetric. There is instead little evidence that per-capita incomes across countries are converging. In fact, some convergence to the bottom might be taking place among the poorest members. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press. Date: 2006 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:15:y:2006:i:2:p:212-250 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Journal of African Economies is currently edited by Francis Teal More articles in Journal of African Economies from Centre for the Study of African Economies Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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