Food imports and foreign exchange constraints under macroeconomic adjustment programs in West Africa

African countries have implemented structural adjustment and other economic reform programs for nearly two decades. This paper uses a vector error correction model in investigating the relationships between relative prices, real income, food imports, per capita domestic food production, and trade policies in five West African countries over the 1960–1998 period. Relative prices and trade reforms have significant and persistent impacts on food imports, domestic food production, and real incomes. Food price shocks are a source of macroeconomic instability in West Africa.