TRADE OPENNESS AND MACROECONOMICS PERFORMANCE OF ECOWAS MEMBERS- EVIDENCE FROM NIGERIA.

Abstract

It is believed that the more countries strive to ensure that they elevate the growth of their economy by opening up to international trade, the more they become in a less advantageous position compared to their trading confrère in terms of their GDP growth. The study observes the impact of openness to trade on the macroeconomic performance of ECOWAS Members centring on Nigeria (1985-2020). The model built has real gross domestic product (RGDP) as the dependent variable which served as a place-holder for macroeconomic performance. The Auto Regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) bound test method was utilised for this study, owning to the fact that it generates more findings when mini samples are enmeshed. The result revealed that the relationship betwixt the macroeconomic performance of the Nigeria economy and openness was negative and trifling. This indicates that the component that characterises openness as relating to the Nigeria economy cannot trigger the required macroeconomic development. The study recommends that only essential capital goods should be imported, keeping in view that not all imported materials are mandatory.