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The Potential Impact on Trade of a Monetary Union in Southern Africa

Southern Africa has been exploring regional integration in the context of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This dissertation seeks to examine the potential bilateral trade volume within SADC, that can be generated as a result of a hypothetical SADC currency union and to analyse its...

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Main Author: Mbano, Sharon
Other Authors: Chelwa, Grieve
Format: Thesis
Language:Eng
Published: Graduate School of Business (GSB) 2019
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access_status_str Open Access
author Mbano, Sharon
author2 Chelwa, Grieve
author_browse Chelwa, Grieve
Mbano, Sharon
author_facet Chelwa, Grieve
Mbano, Sharon
author_sort Mbano, Sharon
collection Thesis
description Southern Africa has been exploring regional integration in the context of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This dissertation seeks to examine the potential bilateral trade volume within SADC, that can be generated as a result of a hypothetical SADC currency union and to analyse its importance for policy. It can serve as a basis for the promotion of regional integration as a means of increasing intraregional trade in the region, on the continent and, ultimately, international trade. Regional monetary unions are envisaged by the African Union (AU) as building blocks towards an eventual continent-wide monetary union. In this respect a gravity model was estimated with panel data using pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), random and fixed effect estimations covering the period 2000 to 2017. Because a SADC multilateral currency union does not exist yet, similar existing versions of monetary integration arrangements in the region were used in this study to draw inferences. The monetary integration arrangements in the region include the Common Monetary Area, a fixed exchange rate regime adopted by South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini, as well as Zimbabwe’s multicurrency regime that includes the South African Rand and the Botswana Pula. The results are largely in line with theoretical expectations except for the currency union dummy variable coefficient which was found to not be statistically significantly different from zero. This therefore means that in the case of SADC, a currency union might not have an effect on bilateral trade flows between member countries. One major limitation lies in the fact that my analysis relies on data based on currency union proxies since a SADC currency union does not already exist. Thus, any extrapolation from my results to infer the impact of an actual currency union on trade might lead to less than robust conclusions.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language Eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:59.204Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2019
publishDateRange 2019
publishDateSort 2019
publisher Graduate School of Business (GSB)
publisherStr Graduate School of Business (GSB)
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/30402 The Potential Impact on Trade of a Monetary Union in Southern Africa Mbano, Sharon Chelwa, Grieve Southern Africa has been exploring regional integration in the context of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This dissertation seeks to examine the potential bilateral trade volume within SADC, that can be generated as a result of a hypothetical SADC currency union and to analyse its importance for policy. It can serve as a basis for the promotion of regional integration as a means of increasing intraregional trade in the region, on the continent and, ultimately, international trade. Regional monetary unions are envisaged by the African Union (AU) as building blocks towards an eventual continent-wide monetary union. In this respect a gravity model was estimated with panel data using pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), random and fixed effect estimations covering the period 2000 to 2017. Because a SADC multilateral currency union does not exist yet, similar existing versions of monetary integration arrangements in the region were used in this study to draw inferences. The monetary integration arrangements in the region include the Common Monetary Area, a fixed exchange rate regime adopted by South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini, as well as Zimbabwe’s multicurrency regime that includes the South African Rand and the Botswana Pula. The results are largely in line with theoretical expectations except for the currency union dummy variable coefficient which was found to not be statistically significantly different from zero. This therefore means that in the case of SADC, a currency union might not have an effect on bilateral trade flows between member countries. One major limitation lies in the fact that my analysis relies on data based on currency union proxies since a SADC currency union does not already exist. Thus, any extrapolation from my results to infer the impact of an actual currency union on trade might lead to less than robust conclusions. 2019-08-01T08:36:11Z 2019-08-01T08:36:11Z 2019 2019-07-31T07:15:20Z Master Thesis Masters MBA http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30402 Eng application/pdf Graduate School of Business (GSB) Faculty of Commerce
spellingShingle Mbano, Sharon
The Potential Impact on Trade of a Monetary Union in Southern Africa
thesis_degree_str Master's
title The Potential Impact on Trade of a Monetary Union in Southern Africa
title_full The Potential Impact on Trade of a Monetary Union in Southern Africa
title_fullStr The Potential Impact on Trade of a Monetary Union in Southern Africa
title_full_unstemmed The Potential Impact on Trade of a Monetary Union in Southern Africa
title_short The Potential Impact on Trade of a Monetary Union in Southern Africa
title_sort potential impact on trade of a monetary union in southern africa
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30402
work_keys_str_mv AT mbanosharon thepotentialimpactontradeofamonetaryunioninsouthernafrica
AT mbanosharon potentialimpactontradeofamonetaryunioninsouthernafrica