External Sustainability of Oil-Producing Sub-Saharan African Countries

August 1, 2011

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Robert C York, and Misa Takebe. External Sustainability of Oil-Producing Sub-Saharan African Countries, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2011) accessed September 19, 2024

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

In the extensive empirical work carried out across the IMF on oil-producing sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, the notion of "sustainability" is often directed toward fiscal policies, and, in particular, views on the "optimal" non-oil primary fiscal deficit. The bulk of this work does not, however, address external sustainability, which is a concern especially for those SSA oil producers operating under a fixed exchange rate regime. A couple of recent papers have extended the existing methodologies to assess external sustainability for some oil-producing countries but they do not focus on those in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we bolster this empirical work by providing a range of estimates for the long-run external current external account balance for each of the SSA oil-producing countries, based on three widely used methodologies in the IMF. Our research strategy is to apply these models to the eight countries in the subregion - Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, and the Republic of Congo - using similar simplifying assumptions so that we are using the same lens to view how they do and do not differ.

Subject: Balance of payments, Commodities, Consumption, Current account, Current account balance, National accounts, Oil, Oil prices, Prices

Keywords: Cash flow, CEMAC current account deficit, Consumption, Current account, Current account balance, External sustainability, Oil, Oil current account, Oil price, Oil prices, Oil-producing countries, Precautionary saving, Sub-Sahara Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Time horizon, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

32
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2011/207
Stock No:

WPIEA2011207
ISBN:

9781463902872
ISSN:

1018-5941

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