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The purpose of this paper is to consider whether regional currency integration in sub-Saharan Africa ameliorates global macroeconomic shocks by considering the impact of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis on economic growth. This suggests that Central Africa Franc Zone (CFAZ) eurocurrency union membership amplifies the effects of global business cycles in sub-Saharan Africa.

The authors estimate the parameters of a quantity theory model of economic growth within a Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) Framework.

Parameter estimates from GEE specifications reveal that the contraction in credit during the financial crisis of 2008-2009 had larger adverse growth effects on sub-Saharan African countries who were members of the CFAZ eurocurrency union. The authors also find that sub-Saharan African countries who were members of the CFAZ eurocurrency union were more likely to experience a contraction in credit.

As far as the authors can discern, no existing empirical growth models use a GEE framework to estimate parameters of interest. The GEE parameter estimates are distribution-free, robust with respect to unknown forms of heteroskedasticity, and control for a wide variety of error structures that can induce bias in panel data parameter estimates.