Pursuing maastricht-style convergence criteria cut West African GDP growth and repeatedly delayed currency plans

Evidence

By pushing ahead with the so-called convergence criteria, ECOWAS introduced an austerity bias, in the same way that the eurozone member states had done in the 1990s. In trying to meet the convergence criteria, GDP growth fell sharply, and unemployment remained at elevated levels as fiscal austerity did its work, as expected. As a result of the ongoing failure to meet the criteria, ECOWAS regularly pushed out the planned introduction date – first 2000, 2005, 2010, 2014, 2015 and now January 2020. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 32

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels criticisms of eurozone austerity and the optimal currency area literature (an ‘OCA is not the eurozone’ argument applied to West Africa). — connects to: African economists warned that fixed euro pegging would exclude African economies from global competition; ECOWAS convergence criteria are unrealistic for volatile African economies; Fixed exchange rate countries in sub-Saharan Africa grow 1-2 points slower — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 296

Related

• ECOWAS convergence criteria are unrealistic for volatile African economies (similarity 0.93)
• African economists warned that fixed euro pegging would exclude African economies from global competition (similarity 0.86)
• Fixed exchange rate countries in sub-Saharan Africa grow 1-2 points slower (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Fixed exchange rate countries in sub-Saharan Africa grow 1-2 points slower #corroborates (0.70) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 296