Le Protectionnisme: analyse économétrique. Le cas de la Communauté économique et Monétaire de l’Afrique centrale (CEMAC)[The Protectionism: econometic analysis. The case of CEMAC]

Like most countries of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), two main thinks characterize the CEMAC sub-region in SSA, on the one hand its foreign exchange regime due to its commitment to preserve the peg vis-à-vis France, on the other hand the need for industrialization of its economies due to the well-known consequences of the “Dutch Disease” (Kuikeu 2019). To this end, the objective of this article is to know if these characteristics could influence the commercial orientation of the sub-region: with regard to the first characteristic, is there credit for the use of Foreign Exchange as instrument for Protection? with regard to the second characteristic, does the "infant industry" argument constitute a credible argument justifying Protection? These are the main questions we are trying to answer here. In general, from a theoretical point of view the developments carried out testify to the robustness of the “Dutch Disease” concept as a tool for analyzing the consequences of this kind of commercial policy, from an empirical point of view the results obtained testify to the robustness of the VAR Methodology as a tool of choice of trade regimes or commercial preferences since it was able to conduct an econometric analysis of Protectionism in CEMAC sub-region.