Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.

Non-UMass Amherst users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.

Dissertations that have an embargo placed on them will not be available to anyone until the embargo expires.

Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9236-8846

AccessType

Open Access Dissertation

Document Type

dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Program

Economics

Year Degree Awarded

2022

Month Degree Awarded

September

First Advisor

Leonce Ndikumana

Second Advisor

Gerald Epstein

Third Advisor

James Heintz

Fourth Advisor

Joye Bowman

Subject Categories

African Studies | Growth and Development | International Economics | International Relations | Macroeconomics | Political Economy

Abstract

This dissertation is organized into three essays. The second essay provides a historical overview of the CFA franc and explores why the CFA franc has survived for so long. It argues that a historical and dialectical materialist analysis of the CFA’s history can best explain both its extraordinary longevity and the periodic major reforms to its functioning. The third essay assesses whether the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) has an independent monetary policy by examining the relationships between BCEAO’s foreign reserves and base money, and between BCEAO and the European Central Banks’s policy rates. The fourth essay evaluates whether the monetary policy transmission mechanism in West Africa is effective by estimating the impact of a change in policy rates and base money on inflation and commercial bank lending. The results of this study suggest that BCEAO is only weakly constrained by its peg to the euro and that it cannot reliably control inflation.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/29939553

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Share

COinS