Decomposing the Effects of Economic Policies on Poverty Trends in Cameroon: A Double Calibration Micro Simulated General Equilibrium Analysis

This paper aims at bringing out the determinants of the significant poverty alleviation observed in Cameroon between 1993 and 2001. It focuses on the decomposition of poverty and growth changes, in order to assess the intrinsic contribution of each major economic policy implemented in Cameroon during this period. A double calibration technique, within a micro-simulated computable general equilibrium model was used to that effect. Findings obtained reveal that the devaluation, the rehabilitation of infrastructures, and the VAT enforcement respectively contributed for two percent, 9 percent and -4 percent in the poverty alleviation; for one percent, 11 percent, and three percent in explaining GDP growth; and for 65 percent, zero percent and 11 percent in the rise of the consumer price index (CPI). Beside revealing the intrinsic impacts of aforementioned policies, the double calibration approach made it possible to realize that technological changes arose between 1993 and 2001 alone stand to explain up to 31 percent of the nationwide decline in poverty, 45 percent of the GDP growth, and 4 percent of the CPI increase. The notion of technological changes refers here to changes occurred across the time in the values of scale parameters contained in production and product differentiation functions.