This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate.This study derives structural implications of the Dutch disease in oil-exporting countries due to permanent oil price shocks from a typical model. We then test these implications in manufacturing sector data across a wide group of countries including oil-exporters covering 1977 to 2004. The results on oil-exporting countries are fourfold. First, we find that permanent increases in oil price negatively impact output in manufacturing as consistent with the Dutch disease. Second, evidence in the data shows that oil windfall shocks have a stronger impact on manufacturing sectors in countries with more open capital markets to foreign investment. Third, we find that the relative factor price of labor to capital, and capital intensity in manufacturing sectors appreciate as windfall increases. Fourth, we find that manufacturing sectors with higher capital intensity are less affected by windfall shocks than their peers, possibly due to a larger share of the effect being absorbed by more laborintensive tradable sectors. An implication of the fourth result is that having diverse manufacturing sectors in capital intensity helps cushion the volatility of oil shocks.

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Financial depth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been uneven over the last two decades. The WAEMU countries are lagging behind other regions, particularly the High Growth Non-oil Exporters (HGNOEs) group. We use two complementary methodologies to compare the two groups of countries. In a panel of 16 countries over 1997-2009, we find that the financial gap between the two groups of countries can be explained by institutional factors. In a benchmarking exercise comparing the major economy in the WAEMU (Côte d'Ivoire) with the most structurally similar in the control group (Mozambique), we show that Côte d'Ivoire underperformed relative to Mozambique and to its estimated potential. We then identify policy and institutional asymmetries between the two countries that could explain the gap in performance.