Regional economic integration and the backward integration of ECOWAS subregion into global value chains
No Thumbnail Available
Date
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
inderscience
Abstract
Description
This paper examines the impact the economic community of West African States (ECOWAS) as
a regional economic community (REC) has exerted on the backward integration of her member
states into global value chains between 2007 and 2012. The conventional indicator of regional
economic integration is compared vis-á-vis a relatively newly proposed indicator in order to
investigate which one performs better in respect of economic expectations. Using the systems
generalised method of moments, this study finds that the newly proposed indicator, which uses
the rest of the world as the benchmark rather than the world while measuring the indicator of
regional economic integration, outperforms its counterpart. Estimates also show that although
ECOWAS as a REC has contributed positively to her members' backward integration into GVCs,
this contribution is not statistically significant. To enhance members' access to the needed quality
inputs via the backward integration, more intensified efforts are needed from this REC
Keywords
HB Economic Theory, HC Economic History and Conditions