Bilan de l'intégration monétaire dans l'UMOA

We present here a survey of the monetary integration in West African Monetary Union. We underpin our analysis on the theory of optimal currency union as well as on empirical studies applied to West Africa. The economic benefits of the monetary integration are in one hand the development of intra-regional trade due to the reductions of transaction costs and the nominal and real exchange rates stability inside the union, in an other hand a better credibility of monetary policy, that increases its efficiency. The drawbacks of the monetary union are the rise of state payments arrears, due to the limitation of seignoriage, and the lost of devaluation as an instrument to face asymmetric shocks in the different countries of the union. Even if the economic balance appears to be largely positive, the choice to belong to the monetary union is finally political. If the monetary union is not able to remove all the hindrances to economic growth , it is a protection against the monetary disasters that have occurred in many other African countries during the last forty years.