TRADE OPENNESS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN SELECTED ECOWAS MEMBER COUNTRIES (1975-2004).

TRADE OPENNESS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN SELECTED ECOWAS MEMBER COUNTRIES (1975-2004).

ABSTRACT

Globalisation, while ubiquitous, is difficult to conceptualise due to its transdisciplinary character. Focussing on the economic perspective, the study investigated the impact of trade openness (the process of promoting the integration of interdependence among nations by lowering barriers to trade, migration, capital flow, and technology transfer) on the economic growth of selected ECOWAS member countries based on outward growth orientation. The secondary data from IFS and Polity IV were analysed descriptively and with the OLS multiple regression approach (after determining the order of variables stationarity), and the following findings were made: (1) The average Ivorian lives better than his or her peers in other countries of the region. (2) Few Member States, particularly Burkina Faso, had not significantly expanded their economies.

(3) Trade openness had a statistically significant positive influence on the economies of Nigeria and Ghana, but the picture is different for others. (4) The study’s findings also indicate that the region’s current sociopolitical condition was counterproductive, with the exception of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.

(5) Government spending had not yielded significant returns in the economic growth process of Members, particularly Nigeria and Mali.

It was urged, among other things, that Member States pursue the current trend of trade openness while making efforts to process their primary products to at least intermediate stage and reducing consumer goods imports.

This means that competent regional trade policy can help maximise the opportunities inherent in trade openness. It was also emphasised that robust private-sector operations and a stable sociopolitical context are critical for economic progress.