IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/iecepo/v22y2025i2d10.1007_s10368-025-00654-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Intraregional trade, multiregional trade and economic growth: Evidence from Africa’s market integration

Author

Listed:
  • Jacob W. Musila

    (Athabasca University)

  • Zelealem Yiheyis

    (Clark Atlanta University)

Abstract

Policymakers in Africa have initiated several regional trading schemes aimed at increasing intra-African trade, believing that it will help achieve rapid economic growth. This paper uses panel data of 42 African countries to investigate the impact of intra-African merchandise trade, extra-African merchandise trade, and multiregional total trade openness on economic growth. We find positive and significant long-run impact of intra-African merchandise trade, extra-African merchandise trade, and multiregional total trade openness on the level of real GDP per capita. However, at the regional level, the long-run impact of intra-African merchandise trade openness on the level of real GDP per capita is only significant in the relatively more integrated regional markets. We do not find the direct impact of trade openness on growth to be statistically significant in the short run, though mostly positive. Besides cross border trade, the paper illustrates the positive and significant role played by physical and human capital accumulation in the economic growth and development process of Africa. The estimated results are consistent across the different estimation approaches employed.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacob W. Musila & Zelealem Yiheyis, 2025. "Intraregional trade, multiregional trade and economic growth: Evidence from Africa’s market integration," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 1-28, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:iecepo:v:22:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s10368-025-00654-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10368-025-00654-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10368-025-00654-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10368-025-00654-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harald Badinger, 2005. "Growth Effects of Economic Integration: Evidence from the EU Member States," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 141(1), pages 50-78, April.
    2. Patrick Vanhoudt, 1999. "Did the European unification induce economic growth? In search of scale effects and persistent changes," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 135(2), pages 193-220, June.
    3. Daniel Cohen & Marcelo Soto, 2007. "Growth and human capital: good data, good results," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 51-76, March.
    4. Markus Brueckner & Daniel Lederman, 2018. "Inequality and economic growth: the role of initial income," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 341-366, September.
    5. Mikael Lindahl & Alan B. Krueger, 2001. "Education for Growth: Why and for Whom?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1101-1136, December.
    6. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1992. "A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 323-351, March.
    7. Edwards, Sebastian, 1998. "Openness, Productivity and Growth: What Do We Really Know?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(447), pages 383-398, March.
    8. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Warner, 1995. "Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 1-118.
    9. M. Hashem Pesaran, 2006. "Estimation and Inference in Large Heterogeneous Panels with a Multifactor Error Structure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(4), pages 967-1012, July.
    10. Henrekson, Magnus & Torstensson, Johan & Torstensson, Rasha, 1997. "Growth effects of European integration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 1537-1557, August.
    11. Athanasios Vamvakidis, 1999. "Regional Trade Agreements or Broad Liberalization: Which Path Leads to Faster Growth?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 46(1), pages 1-3.
    12. Brada, Josef C & Mendez, Jose A, 1988. "An Estimate of the Dynamic Effects of Economic Integration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(1), pages 163-168, February.
    13. Pearson, Scott R & Ingram, William D, 1980. "Economies of Scale, Domestic Divergences, and Potential Gains from Economic Integration in Ghana and the Ivory Coast," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(5), pages 994-1008, October.
    14. Benhabib, Jess & Spiegel, Mark M., 1994. "The role of human capital in economic development evidence from aggregate cross-country data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 143-173, October.
    15. Gustafsson, Peter & Segerstrom, Paul, 2010. "North-South trade with increasing product variety," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 97-106, July.
    16. Spilimbergo, Antonio, 2000. "Growth and Trade: The North Can Lose," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 131-146, June.
    17. Ma, Shengnan, 2022. "Growth effects of economic integration: New evidence from the Belt and Road Initiative," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 753-767.
    18. Fosu, Augustin Kwasi, 1990. "Export composition and the impact of exports on economic growth of developing economies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 67-71, September.
    19. Mr. Charalambos G Tsangarides, 2012. "Determinants of Growth Spells: Is Africa Different?," IMF Working Papers 2012/227, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Markus Brueckner & Daniel Lederman, 2015. "Trade Openness and Economic Growth: Panel Data Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 82, pages 1302-1323, December.
    21. Bhagwati, Jagdish N, 1988. "Export-Promoting Trade Strategy: Issues and Evidence," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 3(1), pages 27-57, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.
    2. Rosa Capolupo & Giuseppe Celi, 2008. "Openness And Economic Growth: A Comparative Study Of Alternative Trading Regimes," Economie Internationale, CEPII research center, issue 116, pages 5-36.
    3. Arvanitidis, Paschalis & Petrakos, George & Pavleas, Sotiris, 2007. "Determinants of economic growth: the experts’ view," Papers DYNREG20, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    4. Xuepeng Liu, 2016. "Trade Agreements and Economic Growth," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(4), pages 1374-1401, April.
    5. Camilla Mastromarco & Léopold Simar, 2021. "Latent heterogeneity to evaluate the effect of human capital on world technology frontier," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 71-89, April.
    6. Artelaris, Panagiotis & Arvanitidis, Paschalis & Petrakos, George, 2006. "Theoretical and Methodological Study on Dynamic Growth Regions and Factors Explaining their Growth Performance," Papers DYNREG02, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    7. Aribah Aslam, 2020. "The hotly debate of human capital and economic growth: why institutions may matter?," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1351-1362, August.
    8. Antonio Mihi-Ramirez & Elias Melchor-Ferrer & Yolanda Garcia-Rodriguez, 2022. "Why Do Regions Differ in Growth? The Productivity of the Eurozone and Its Contribution to the Added Value of Its European Neighbors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-18, September.
    9. Tarlok Singh, 2010. "Does International Trade Cause Economic Growth? A Survey," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(11), pages 1517-1564, November.
    10. Arjan Lejour & Vladimir Solanic & Paul Tang, 2009. "EU Accession and Income Growth: An Empirical Approach," Transition Studies Review, Springer;Central Eastern European University Network (CEEUN), vol. 16(1), pages 127-144, May.
    11. Kong, Dongmin & Zhang, Bohui & Zhang, Jian, 2022. "Higher education and corporate innovation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    12. Ralph Hippe & Roger Fouquet, 2024. "The Human Capital Transition and the Role of Policy," Springer Books, in: Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), Handbook of Cliometrics, edition 3, pages 411-457, Springer.
    13. Jochen Hartwig, 2009. "A panel Granger-causality test of endogenous vs. exogenous growth," KOF Working papers 09-231, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    14. Lucas Bretschger & Thomas M. Steger, 2004. "The dynamics of economic integration: Theory and policy," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 119-134, January.
    15. Bas Straathof & Gert Jan Linders & Arjan Lejour & Jan Möhlmann, 2008. "The internal market and the Dutch economy: implications for trade and economic growth," CPB Document 168, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    16. Jérôme Vandenbussche & Philippe Aghion & Costas Meghir, 2006. "Growth, distance to frontier and composition of human capital," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 97-127, June.
    17. Liu Haiyun & Yassin Elshain Yahia & Md Ismail Hossain & Sayyed Sadaqat Hussain Shah, 2023. "The effect of integration processes of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa on the economic growth of the member states," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 93-111, January.
    18. Padilla León, 2020. "Can Monetary Integration Improve Productivity? Empirical Evidence of Eurozone," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 15(2), pages 57-69, December.
    19. Ulaşan, Bülent, 2012. "Cross-country growth empirics and model uncertainty: An overview," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 6, pages 1-69.
    20. Theofanis P. Mamuneas & Andreas Savvides & Thanasis Stengos, 2006. "Economic development and the return to human capital: a smooth coefficient semiparametric approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(1), pages 111-132, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:iecepo:v:22:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s10368-025-00654-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.