Sumario: | This paper presents an overview of the evolution of exchange-rate regimes in Africa and then attempts to assess empirically the impact of exchange-rate policy on manufactured export performance on a panel of major Sub-Saharan Africa countries over the 1970-92 period. We examine the impact of three exchange-rate policy indicators: real effective exchangerate changes, real exchange-rate volatility, and (model-based measures of) real exchange-rate misalignment. Export supply functions are estimated for three manufacturing industries (textile, chemicals, and metals) and two exchange-rate regimes: a fixed rates regime including six CFA Franc countries, and a more flexible regime represented by five non-CFA countries. Our findings show that exchange-rate management matters for export performance. This is evidenced both by the significant impact of changes in the real effective exchange rate and by the negative influence exerted independently by real exchange-rate misalignment. On the ...
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