Abstract

The sluggish and sometimes negative growth in sub-Saharan Africa has defined the objectives of most studies seeking to explain the sources of its slow growth. I contribute to this inquiry by estimating how state fragility influences the effect of exchange rate misalignment on economic growth. Since exchange rate misalignment captures the distortionary effects of inappropriate macroeconomic policies in the main, my hypothesis is that resilient and less fragile states cope better with macroeconomic imbalances making misaligned exchange rates less likely to have serious effects on growth in such countries. In testing this hypothesis, I first measure misalignment as deviations of the actual exchange rate from an estimated equilibrium level using the dynamic ordinary least squares method. I then insert this variable and its interaction with state fragility in a growth specification. In line with my hypothesis, results from the system generalised method of moments and data on 13 sub-Saharan countries observed between 2009 and 2018 show a significantly negative effect of exchange rate misalignment on growth that increases with state fragility. Based on this evidence, I urge countries in this region to improve state resilience as an effort to reduce the negative effect of exchange rate misalignment on economic growth.

摘要

撒哈拉以南非洲的增长缓慢，有时甚至是负增长，已经确定了大多数旨在解释其缓慢增长的根源的研究目标。通过估算国家的脆弱性如何影响汇率失调对经济增长的影响，我为这一询问做出了贡献。由于汇率失调主要反映了不适当的宏观经济政策的扭曲效应，因此我的假设是，弹性强且脆弱程度较小的国家可以更好地应对宏观经济失衡，从而使汇率失调对此类国家的增长产生严重影响的可能性较小。在检验此假设时，我首先使用动态普通最小二乘法将失准作为实际汇率与估计均衡水平的偏差进行度量。然后，在增长规范中插入此变量及其与状态脆弱性的交互。根据我的假设，系统的广义矩方法和2009年至2018年期间在撒哈拉以南13个国家/地区观察到的数据得出的结果表明，汇率失调对增长的负面影响显着，随着国家的脆弱性而增加。基于这些证据，我敦促该地区的国家提高国家的抵御能力，以减少汇率错位对经济增长的负面影响。