Person:
Zeufack, Albert G.
Author Name Variants
Zeufack, Albert (ed.)
Fields of Specialization
Micro-foundations of macroeconomics
Degrees
External Links
Departments
Office of the Chief Economist for Africa Region
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
April 3, 2023
Biography
Albert G. Zeufack is the World Bank Country Director for Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sao Tome and Principe. Prior to this assignment, from 2016 to 2022, Dr. Zeufack held the position of Chief Economist for the World Bank’s Africa region.
A Cameroonian national, Dr. Zeufack joined the World Bank in 1997 as a Young Professional and started his career as a research economist in the macroeconomics division of the research department. Since then, he has held several positions in the World Bank’s Africa, East Asia and Pacific, and Europe and Central Asia regions. Between 2008 and 2012, when on leave from the World Bank, he served as Director of Research and Investment Strategy/Chief Economist for Khazanah Nasional Berhad, a Malaysian Sovereign Wealth Fund.
He previously worked as Director of Research at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, and before that he co-founded the Natural Resource Charter.
Publication Search Results
1 - 3 of 3
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Publication
Sovereign Wealth Funds and Long-Term Investments in Sub-Saharan Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-12)This paper explores the landscape, contributions, and determinants of sovereign wealth funds' long-term investments in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study finds that of all regions, Africa receives the lowest share of investment from sovereign wealth funds, and the landscape is dominated by Asian funds. The investment strategies of sovereign wealth funds established by African countries tend to be to invest less domestically and more abroad, contrary to Asian funds. In addition, using an enriched simple mean-variance portfolio model with an exponential utility function, the analysis shows that the investment rate of return and political connections have a positive and significant effect on sovereign wealth fund investments, and risk exerts a negative but not significant effect. The paper confirms these results empirically, using a database that includes 26 sovereign wealth fund investments over 1985-2013. Hence, sovereign wealth funds investing in Africa care more about high returns and the political interests of their country of origin than the risk of their investment. -
Publication
Optimal Allocation of Natural Resource Surpluses in a Dynamic Macroeconomic Framework: A DSGE Analysis with Evidence from Uganda
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-12)In low-income, capital-scarce economies that face financial and fiscal constraints, managing revenues from newly found natural resources can be a daunting challenge. The policy debate is how to scale up public investment to meet huge needs in infrastructure without generating a higher public deficit, and avoid the Dutch disease. This paper uses an open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that is compatible with low-income economies and calibrated on Ugandan's data to tackle this problem. The paper explores macroeconomic dynamics under three stylized fiscal policy approaches for managing resource windfalls: investing all in public capital, saving all in a sovereign wealth fund, and a sustainable-investing approach that proposes a constant share of resource revenues to finance public investment and the rest to be saved. The analysis finds that a gradual scaling-up of public investment yields the best outcome, as it minimizes macroeconomic volatility. The analysis then investigates the optimal oil share to use for public investment; the criterion minimizes a loss function that accounts for households' welfare and macroeconomic stability in an environment featuring oil price volatility. The findings show that, depending on the policy maker's preference for stability, 55 to 85 percent of oil windfalls should be invested. -
Publication
Housing Finance and Inclusive Growth in Africa: Benchmarking, Determinants, and Effects
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-12)Using a partially constructed panel database of 48 Sub-Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2013, this paper analyzes the structure of housing finance in Africa, its determinants, and its impact on inclusive growth. The findings show that market capitalization and urbanization are key positive determinants of housing finance, and the post-conflict environment is conductive to greater housing finance development. This result suggests that housing finance is driven by standard market forces of demand and supply. In addition, the analysis finds that housing finance development in Africa is not yet an effective tool for reducing economic inequality, at its current, very early stage. However, the paper shows that above a given threshold, housing finance could be efficient at reducing inequality. Finally, there is a slightly positive relationship between housing finance and greater economic development in Africa. All these findings suggest that policies to boost housing finance development in Africa would be fruitful in the medium to long terms.