Introduction to the Special Issue: Africa's Macroeconomic Vulnerabilities

....The last two decades have witnessed remarkable improvements in the economic performance of Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries amid a favourable external environment, progress in macroeconomic management and robust public investment. SSA has experienced greater macroeconomic volatility than other regions of the world; despite the lower volatility of the world economy during the Great Moderation, the volatility of growth rates in SSA remains much the same as before. In general, this greater volatility carries significant welfare costs for the countries in the region as they face more frequent and larger shocks, and have limited capacity to insure against fluctuations in domestic consumption or to share risks internationally (although ironically SSA's lower levels of international financial integration have probably helped to insulate the region from the effects of the global financial crisis).