THE AFRICAN CONTINENTAL FREE TRADE ZONE: AN ANALYSIS USING EXTERNAL CONSTRAINTS

This article attempts to verify, through an external constraint analysis, whether the establishment of a continental free trade area is favorable to all African countries.By specifying ordinary least squares error-correction models from 1981 to 2017, we show that some sub-Saharan African countries run trade deficits and are therefore subject to an external constraint.Countries with fragile currencies are exposed to exchange rate instability.