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The purpose of this paper is to estimate the optimal inflation rate, defined as the threshold level below and above which inflation affects economic growth, from the experience of the BEAC1. For this purpose, we use panel data over the period 1985-2013. Relying upon the estimation of Panel Smooth Transition Regression (PSTR) model inspired from González et al. (2005), our main findings are the following. (i) The optimal inflation rate is around 4.3%. (ii) Below the threshold, an increase of 1% of inflation enhances growth by 0.28 %. Over the threshold, a one percent increase in inflation leads to a reduction of 0.26% in growth. These results are robust with respect to sensitivity analyses and GMM estimation.JEL Codes: E31, C23.