Abstract
There have been persistent high fiscal deficits, inflation and interest rates in Member States of the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ). Thus, inflation and fiscal deficit criteria are the most difficult to satisfy in the Zone. This study, therefore, seeks to investigate the level of coordination between the fiscal and monetary authorities in each of the WAMZ countries and its implications for the attainment of the inflation and fiscal deficit criteria. To achieve this objective, the study utilizes the Set Theoretic Approach (STA) and the vector autoregressive (VAR) modelling to estimate the degree of policy coordination in the Zone. Under the STA, coordination exists when shocks to policy goals elicit prudent policy responses. In case of the VAR, the strength of coordination is measured by the impulse responses of fiscal and monetary policy variables to innovations in inflation, output gap and exchange rate. Both the STA and VAR estimations made use of annual data for the period 1980–2011. The study finds that there were weak policy coordination and insufficient policy prudence in all the WAMZ countries during the study period, contributing to the non-compliance with inflation and fiscal deficit criteria. The key recommendation is that WAMZ countries should strengthen policy coordination by putting in place formal coordination platforms and institutional arrangements for timely and adequate statistics, binding commitments and effective monitoring and evaluation of policy outcomes.
A paper presented at the Fourth Annual Conference for Regional Integration in Africa, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, July 4–6, 2013.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Agha AI, Khan MS (2006) An empirical analysis of fiscal imbalances and inflation in Pakistan. SBP Res Bull 2(2):343–362
Andlib Z, Khan A, Ul Haq I (2012) The coordination of fiscal and monetary policies in Pakistan (An empirical analysis 1975–2011), Internet
Arby MF, Hanif MN (2010) Monetary and fiscal policies coordination: Pakistan’s experience. SBP Res Bull 6(1):3–13
Chuku AC (2012) Monetary and fiscal policy interactions in Nigeria: an application of a state-space model with Markov-switching. J Appl Stat 1(1):39
Hasan A, Isgut A (2009) Effective coordination of monetary and fiscal policies: conceptual issues and experiences of selected Asia-Pacific countries. A paper presented at United Nations economic and social commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)’s regional high-level workshop on strengthening the response to the global financial crisis in Asia-Pacific: the role of monetary, fiscal and external debt policies, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 27–30 Jul 2009
Lambertini L, Rovelli R (2002) Independent or coordinated? Monetary and fiscal policy in EMU. Internet
Melitz J (1997) Some cross-country evidence about debt, deficits and the behaviour of monetary and fiscal authority. CEPR discussion paper, no. 1653
Muscatelli VA, Tirelli P, Trecroci C (2002) Monetary and fiscal policy interactions over the cycle: some empirical evidence, CESifo Working Paper Series 817. CESifo Group, Munich
Nasir M, Ahmad A, Ali A, Faiz-Ur-Rehman (2010) Fiscal and monetary policy coordination: evidence from Pakistan. Int Res J Fin Econ 35:202–213
Nordhaus WD (1994) Marching to different drummers: coordination and independence in monetary and fiscal policies. Cowles foundation discussion papers, 1067, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University
Raj J, Khundrakpam JK, Das D (2011) An empirical analysis of monetary and fiscal policy interaction in India. RBI working paper series, WPS (DEPR)
Sargent TJ, Wallace N (1981) Some unpleasant monetarist arithmetic. Fed Reserve Bank MN Q Rev 5(3):1–17
Semmler W, Zhang W (2003) Monetary and fiscal policy interactions: some empirical evidence from the Euro-Area. Mimeo, Bielefeld University working paper no. 48, Mar 2003
Tabellini G (1987) Monetary and fiscal policy coordination with a high public debt. UCLA economics working papers, 449, UCLA Department of Economics
Theil H (1964) Optimal decision rules for government and industry. North Holland, Amsterdam
Tinbergen J (1952) On the theory of economic policy. North Holland, Amsterdam
Tinbergen J (1956) Economic policies: principles and design. North Holland, Amsterdam
Worrell D (2000) Monetary and fiscal coordination in small open economies, IMF Working Paper, WP/00/56. IMF, Washington, DC
Zoli C, Lambert PJ (2005) Sequential procedures for poverty gap dominance. University of Oregon Economics Department working papers, 2005-1. University of Oregon Economics Department
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Englama, A., Tarawalie, A.B., Ahortor, C.R.K. (2014). Fiscal and Monetary Policy Coordination in the WAMZ: Implications for Member States’ Performance on the Convergence Criteria. In: Seck, D. (eds) Private Sector Development in West Africa. Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05188-8_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05188-8_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-05187-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05188-8
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)