PhD seminar

External and Internal Real Exchange Rates and the Dutch Disease in Africa: Evidence from a Panel of Nine Oil-Exporting Countries

Discussants : Samuel Guérineau et Tiemele Aristide Affroumou

Abstract

Despite a large number of empirical studies on Dutch disease in developing countries and the evidence that natural resources revenues tend to appreciate the real exchange rate, there remains little discussion about the definition of the real exchange rate. This article aims to fill this gap by using 4 different proxies of the real exchange rate, differentiating the internal from the external real exchange rates for agricultural and manufacturing sectors respectively. Using Pooled-Mean-Group and Mean-Group estimates on a panel of nine African countries,  results show a clear appreciation of the RER except for the internal real exchange rate for manufacturing. This would imply that Dutch disease more clearly affect agricultural compared to manufacturing competitiveness in these African countries.

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