The objective of this paper has been to investigate the impact of exchange rate volatility on trade in the context of exports, imports, and the trade balance in West Africa. Applying the pooled Ordinary Least Square, the fixed effects, and the random effect models, and obtaining robust estimates for export and trade balance models by employing xtgls, panels (correlated) Corr (ar1), and adopting xtscc, fe regression with Driscoll-Kraay standard error to estimate the import model. The empirical results show that the impact of exchange rate volatility on exports and imports is insignificant. However, the result of the trade balance model shows a positive and significant link between exchange rate volatility and the trade balance. Thus, suggesting that traders tend to engage more in export activities with an increase in exchange rate volatility. Also, the analysis suggests that depreciation of the real exchange rate will lead to a decrease in exports. Thereby, confirming the limited production capability and heavy reliance on imported goods and services. Hence, this study recommends diversification of production activities and adopting strategies aiming at reducing dependence on imported goods and services. The empirical result shows a positive association between an increase in domestic economic activities of trading partners and exports of the West African countries. This implies that West African countries must engage in trade with countries that have a high economic growth rate. The result also shows a positive link between inflation rate and imports. This suggests the implementation of effective monetary policies geared towards controlling inflation.

The regression and the vector autoregressive VAR models have been employed in this analysis. I use the autodistributed lag regression model to estimate both the short and the long-run impacts. In the VAR model, orthogonalized impulse response functions are employed to estimate the short-run. The regression result shows that while depreciation of the RER increases aggregate cocoa and coffee exports AGX in the current year, this variable is not significant in determining AGX in Sierra Leone. This is due to the fact that AGX have long gestation periods and until this period is over, suppliers cannot actually raise their output and hence exports. The negative effect of the one period lag of RER variable on AGX can be attributed to the fact that in the long run, depreciation in the nominal exchange rate leads to real exchange rate depreciation. This will lead to increase in cost of imported farming inputs in domestic currency terms. The reduction in imports that follows decreases the output and hence cocoa and coffee exports. However, this variable is not significant in determining AGX in Sierra Leone. An increase in the orthogonalized shock to the first difference of log RER causes a short series of increases in first difference of log AGX followed by a decrease, followed by an increase that dies out after four periods. The null hypothesis that the lag of first difference of log RER does not Granger-cause the lag of first difference of AGX cannot be rejected. The paper concluded that in the short and long-run, the RER should not be taken as policy variable to influence AGX in Sierra Leone.

The implications of exchange rate movement for economic growth have become a growing focus of attention in the recent policy debate and the debate concentrate on the degree of volatility in the exchange rate. Exchange rate volatility is usually a risk that will result in higher costs for risk-averse investors, who may adopt a wait-and-see policy until the uncertainty subsides, thereby leading to reduced employment opportunities and slower growth. Thus, in judging the desirability of exchange rate volatility, this paper studies the effects of exchange rate volatility on economic growth for twelve West African countries: The Gambia,

This study examined the effects of exchange rate volatility on economic growth in four WAMZ countries. The study uses the pooled ordinary least squares, fixed effects and random effects models, and obtains a robust standard error estimate of the model by applying xtreg, cluster()fe. The empirical analysis shows that the effects of exchange rate volatility on economic growth is insignificant. The results also show a positive correlation between exports and economic growth. This implies that policies aimed at increasing exports through an appropriate exchange rate may be beneficial countries. In addition, the analysis also shows a positive and significant link between imports and economic growth rates. Therefore, this confirms that the countries actually benefit  from imports resulting from the competitive pressure generated by the import of consumer goods and  professional knowledge, and also from the transfer of technology embodied in the import of goods by producers. Hence, the policy of removing import barriers will benefit the countries. In addition, the results show that there is a positive correlation between the nominal exchange rate and economic growth rate. Therefore, it shows that the nominal exchange rate depreciation policy can play an important role in improving the economic growth of the countries. However, the research results show that there is an inverse relationship between the real exchange rate and economic growth. Considering the importance of the real exchange rate, this study suggests the introduction of a common currency in the WAMZ to reduce the negative effects of the real exchange rate on economic growth.