Fragility and macroeconomic outcomes in ECOWAS

Abstract

Abctract. This study examined the nature of the interactions between fragility and macroeconomic outcomes in ECOWAS. This is despite the backdrop of evidences showing that macroeconomic policies sufficiently drive macroeconomic outcomes. Meanwhile sub-Saharan African countries have taken the backbench on almost any standard measures of macroeconomic performance within the last two decades. Contemporaneously, the region dominates the top 50 percentiles of ranking on almost all dimension and indicators of fragility. \xa0Using a panel data for the 15 countries covering the period between 1995-2016 and employing the Panel Vector Autoregressive (PVAR) estimation techniques, the findings from this work show that the seven macroeconomic outcomes used in the study respond to fragility negatively and that fragility accounts for major sources of shocks in these economies. The study recommends that ECOWAS should employ a formidable approach to blocking this distortion called fragility. Keywords. Panel VAR, Shocks, Resource Curse, Sub-Saharan Africa, ECOWAS. JEL. F41, I31, O11.