TITLE:
The Impact of Chinese Trade and Investment on West African Economic Growth: A Spatial Econometrics Approach
AUTHORS:
Hua Wilfried Serge Koffi
KEYWORDS:
China, Trade, Investment, West Africa, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Economic Growth
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Applied Sciences,
Vol.10 No.4,
April
26,
2020
ABSTRACT: This paper has studied the West African region or Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS) which includes fifteen countries and its
relationship with China. Three countries (Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria) of
the fifteen countries which are economically representative in the west African
region to represent the overall-region were studied. Therefore, the objective
of this study is to investigate the spatial effect of Chinese trade and
investment on the economic growth of West Africa. The study focuses on the
period from 1960-2014 using the dynamic panel data approach and spatial
autoregressive approach for the econometric analysis of this topic.
Empirically, the results show that trade openness with China has a positive
impact on the neighboring countries of the region, especially for those who
share the same border. Chinese investment is
vital to the region’s economic growth as the results show that one dollar
investment increase from China to the host country increases the
economic growth in the neighboring countries by 0.328%.