Assessing Fiscal Vulnerability, Macroeconomic Performance, and Inclusive Growth in Selected African Economies Before the COVID-19 Shock: A Cross-Country Analysis
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Abstract
This study examines fiscal vulnerability, macroeconomic performance, public debt dynamics, and inclusive growth before and during the initial COVID-19 shock, using selected African economies and comparative cross-country indicators as empirical material. The paper draws on Python-based statistical processing of fiscal, macroeconomic, institutional, and inclusive-growth data, with the analytical horizon limited to observations through 2020 whenever year information is available. The study combines descriptive statistics, trend and correlation analyses, model comparisons, hypothesis testing, and visual interpretation to evaluate the relationship between fiscal indicators and macroeconomic outcomes. The results indicate persistent fiscal pressure in the Egyptian fiscal-balance series, strong positive associations between institutional-quality indicators and transformed GDP per capita, improved explanatory power when economic freedom is decomposed into its components, and statistically significant provincial differences in inclusive-growth indicators. The results indicate that fiscal sustainability prior to COVID-19 cannot be assessed solely through public debt levels; it is also contingent upon revenue capacity, expenditure composition, inflation, unemployment, institutional integrity, and regional inclusivity. The paper contributes by organizing diverse empirical evidence into an integrated pre-COVID macro-fiscal framework suitable for later econometric extension.
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