La zone Franc entrave-t-elle la transformation structurelle des économies des pays membres ?

Abstract

This paper seeks to evaluate the impact of Franc zone on the structural transformation of the countries of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the Economic community of West African States (ECOWAS). The methodology is based on a comparative analysis of trends of three indicators of structural transformation, namely: the size of the manufacturing sector measured by manufacturing value added, the weight of the manufacturing sector as a percentage of GDP, and the decline in the share of agricultural employment in total employment. The data used are collected from the UNCTADSTAT database of the UNCTAD and the World Development Indicators database of the World Bank. The results reveal that no demarcation is perceptible between the Franc zone countries and the non-member countries in terms of the size and weight of the manufacturing sector. However, the declining trend of the share of agricultural employment is stronger in the non-Franc zone than in the Franc member countries. In the light of these results, we suggest that reforms should be introduced in the unions of the Franc zone, to enable central banks to contribute more effectively to the remodeling of the production apparatus and to favor a continuous and irreversible movement of the labor force towards the most productive sectors of the economy, that is to say a real structural transformation.

Keywords

• Franc Zone
• structural transformation
• ECCAS
• ECOWAS