Economic Fluctuations in Sub-Saharan Africa

Giovanni Melina and Rafael Portillo

No 2018/040, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: We compare business cycle fluctuations in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Our main results are as follows: (i) African economies stand out by their macroeconomic volatility, which is is reflected in the volatility of output and other macro variables; (ii) inflation and output tend to be negatively correlated; (iii) unlike advanced economies and emerging markets (EMs), trade balances and current accounts are acyclical in SSA; (iv) the volatility of consumption and investment relative to GDP is larger than in other countries; (v) the cyclicality of consumption and investment is smaller than in advanced economies and EMs; (vi) there is little comovement between consumption and investment; (vii) consumption and investment are strongly positively correlated with imports.

Keywords: WP; GDP deflator; italic; SSA economy; business cycles; macroeconomic fluctuations; low income countries; developing economies; comparative studies of countries; SSA group; SSA countries consist; SSA LLMIC; Consumption; Trade balance; Inflation; Current account; Sub-Saharan Africa; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32
Date: 2018-03-05
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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