Impacts of Real Effective Exchange Rate on Sudan Macroeconomic Variables

8 Pages Posted: 27 Mar 2012 Last revised: 15 Jun 2012

See all articles by Issam A.W. Mohamed

Issam A.W. Mohamed

Al-Neelain University - Department of Economics

Hamza Hamza

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Date Written: March 26, 2012

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to estimate the effects of Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) on Sudan trade balance (TB). The present situation is confusing for all in Sudan with discrepancies in market effective foreign currencies and government declared prices. For example, one US$ in the market is worth 5.2 Sudanese pounds, while government price is only 2.62. That generates deep gap between imports real cost and domestic market values. The same is true for exports which are valued below REER and that minimize producers' profitability. There studies that have investigated in the short-run and long run effects of real effective exchange rate on trade balance. The first group has employed at aggregate level between Sudan and the rest of world. The second group has used the trade at the bilateral level between Sudan and her major trading partners, China as a largest export and import partner of Sudan. Since a country's trade balance behavior is directly depending on real effective exchange rate (REER), foreign income (Y*) and real domestic income (Y), so, we will include all these variables in our model to test the general case (Sudan-world case) and specific case (Sudan-China case). This study uses unit root tests, co-integration techniques, Error Correction Model (ECM) and impulse response function with time series data covering the periods of 1981Q1-2009Q4. The main findings of this study are that REER have a significant expected impact as positive in long-run and negative in short-run on the Sudan bilateral trade balance with China and on the total trade balance. The Granger Causality test suggests that REER does Granger causes trade balance for all cases of study. The study clearly demonstrates that real devaluations of exchange rate in Sudan have been negatively associated with improvement of trade balance. Hence, devaluation of currency as a whole does not seem to be beneficial for Sudan exports. That is because the country's real economic sectors, agriculture and industry have deteriorated in their productive abilities, mostly due to oil dependency syndrome and negligence.

Keywords: Trade Balance, Real Effective Exchange Rate, Co-integration, Granger Causality

JEL Classification: A00, A10, B40, C1, C3, C10, C30, C31, C32, C33, C39, D50, D51, F3, F30, F31, F32, F33

Suggested Citation

Mohamed, Issam A.W. and Hamza, Hamza, Impacts of Real Effective Exchange Rate on Sudan Macroeconomic Variables (March 26, 2012). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2029234 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2029234

Issam A.W. Mohamed (Contact Author)

Al-Neelain University - Department of Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 12910-11111
Khartoum, Khartoum 11111
Sudan
249122548254 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://works.bepress.com/issamawmohamed/

Hamza Hamza

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
215
Abstract Views
1,837
Rank
255,999
PlumX Metrics