Monetary, Financial and Fiscal Stability in the East African Community: Ready for a Monetary Union?

We examine prospects for a monetary union in the East African Community (EAC) by developing a stylized model of policymakers' decision problem that allows for uncertain benefits derived from monetary,financial and fiscal stability, and then calibrating the model for the EAC for the period 2003-2010. When policymakers properly allow for uncertainty, none of the countries wants to pursue a monetary union based on either monetary or financial stability grounds, and only Rwanda might favor it on fiscal stability grounds; we argue that robust institutional arrangements assuring substantial improvements in monetary, financial and fiscal stability are needed to compensate