Public debt and development sustainability issues in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU)

Abstract

This article analyses the impact of public debt on sustainability as measured by the genuine savings indicator covering the period from 2004 to 2018. The methodology adopted is based on dynamic panel generalized methods of moments (GMM). The results after estimation show a negative and significant contribution of public debt to the WAEMU countries’ development sustainability. However, we note that an improvement in institutional governance, an increase in health expenditures and climate change expenditures contribute significantly to putting these countries on a sustainable development trajectory.