Trade Facilitation and Economic Growth in ECOWAS Member States: Does Government Size Matter?

Trade facilitation is crucial for regional trade integration and economic growth. This paper subjects the trade facilitation-growth nexus to further scrutiny by focusing on the intermediating role of government size, a central aspect of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional integration efforts. Based on an augmented growth model, the Blundell-Bond system GMM estimator is used to analyze data for 13 ECOWAS countries spanning 2007 to 2022. The empirical findings indicate that trade facilitation exerts a positive but insignificant effect on economic growth in the sub-region. However, the interaction between government size and trade facilitation significantly drives economic growth, suggesting that the size of government matters for the nexus. Further analysis using disaggregated measures of trade facilitation and the use of alternative static panel data estimators underscore the need for sustained regional and national efforts and engagements towards implementing trade facilitation policies under the ECOWAS framework.