Batı Afrika ülkeleri ekonomik topluluğu içinde Gana ticaretini etkileyen faktörler: Gravite modeli uygulaması

Over decades now, regional economic collaborations have engaged the attention of nations, with the primary objective of attaining economic growth and development. One common area has been regional trade liberalisation through the formation of regional trade blocs. Tobler's first law of geography states that 'Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things'. General theory of regional integration suggests that belonging to regional trade bloc presumably has positive effects on the economy of the membership. Regional economic integration entails an agreement among neighbouring countries, which facilitates the free flow of goods and services, investment, technology and persons within a common geographical boundary where there is a single market with benefits of comparative advantage and economies of scale. Increased and sustained welfare gains from regional trade for example help economies to reduce poverty and subsequently achieving development. Regional relationships ease the recovery of developing regions, and also support them to cope gradually with the challenges of global competitiveness. Furthermore, larger regional markets make it possible for large companies to expand and prepare adequately for international competitiveness. On the contrary regional economic integration leads to trade diversion, as member states may trade more with each other more than with non-members. This may lead to a situation where weaker and ineffective companies in the bloc are unconsciously or otherwise protected, creating new barriers to intra-regional trade. It also results in the loss of autonomy of member states as the decision-making process is determined by collective action rather than individual efforts; this may undermine the domestic economic policies of members. Regional trade theories advanced that obtaining the maximum benefit from trade depends on the comparative advantage and factor endowments of individual countries. There is comparative advantage in trade when each member in the regional bloc concentrates on and exports goods that they can produce at lower opportunity cost than their trading counterparts. A nation's firms reaping the profits from regional trade is determined by their competitiveness in the global arena, in which the government has an important role to play by creating the enabling environment through prudent policies for such firms to strive. Efforts at economic integration in Africa gained considerable momentum over the years partly as a strategy to overcome smallness of national economies, and to cope with rigorous global competition. Since 1975, Ghana has made giant strides towards regional economic integration with its neighbours in the West Africa sub-region by founding the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The fundamental goal of this regional bloc is to achieve free trade area and a common market. It aims at, eliminating custom duties and other charges of equivalent effect in respect of the exportation and importation of goods between member states; abolishing quantitative and administrative restrictions on trade among the member states; establishing a common customs tariff and a common commercial policy towards third countries; and abolishing between the member states the obstacles inhibiting free movement of persons, goods, services and capital. Since bilateral and regional trade liberalisation is becoming increasingly common, it is indispensable to comprehend the significance this may have for a country like Ghana, more especially in this period of fresh calls to promote deeper regional economic integration which enhances intra-regional trade in the face of the on-going negotiations between European Union and sub-regional groups like ECOWAS on the Economic Partnership Agreements. Ghana's trade policy pays considerable attention to the importance of regional integration in the sub-region. It holds that proper integration with neighbours will provide access to larger regional market, where Ghanaian products can compete and make goods cheaper for her citizens. New trade theory suggests that when domestic consumers have high tastes, it creates pressure in the market for firms to meet high standard of quality demanded through innovation and investment in modern technology. Therefore increased regional market will stimulate industrialisation and further investment in the sectors of the Ghanaian economy. This dissertation attempted to determine the factors that affect Ghana's bilateral trade flows in ECOWAS by employing the gravity model approach. Specifically this study investigated the factors that promote as well as hinder Ghana's trade activity in the economic union. Ghana's trade activity in ECOWAS is more of import than export, and contributes very little to output. Generally, intra-regional trade of Ghana, aside with Nigeria (the largest economy in the bloc), is inconsistent and unsatisfactory. This may be linked to the challenges faced by countries in trade blocs on the continent of Africa. These barriers to intra-regional among others include; poor transportation network, cumbersome import and export procedures, border-crossing impediments, limited use of information and communication technology, ineffective involvement of the private sector in the design of programmes aimed to raise intra-regional trade; and poor trade settlement systems. The number of controls, bribery and delays at checkpoints on the trade corridors of ECOWAS sub-region are found to be highly prevalence, and are major impediments inhibiting Ghana's trade in the bloc. For instance there are averagely a total of 23.3 control checkpoints existing on the trade route between Tema (Ghana) and Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), with a distance of only 1,057 kilometres where about $39.1 is paid as bribe. Despite Ghana's economic progress, the economy is largely dependent on the export of primary commodities. The economy is fundamentally agrarian, a characteristic of a developing economy. Apart from the service sector which remains fairly strong over the last few years, the growth of industry sector has been slow due to the decline in manufacturing activity. The contribution of manufacturing sector to output declined from 7.9% in 2008 to 6.9% by 2012. This is attributable to inadequate technology and innovation; and the dependent on light manufacturing. As a result the country is unable to add value to the primary products before export. The gravity model specified for this study was estimated with a panel data ranging from 1999 to 2013 using the economic, demographic and geographic variables of Ghana and the other fourteen member countries. The pooled ordinary least squares technique was used for the statistical estimation and subsequent analysis. The choice of this methodology stemmed from its extensive application in trade analysis and the flexibility it offers the researcher to introduce other variables that facilitate or impede intra-trade activity. The empirical results established that improvement in Ghana's gross domestic product and that of its trading partners, increase in partners' population, improved trade freedom of partners are positive and statistically significant factors that determine Ghana's bilateral trade flows in the bloc. With the basic gravity model approach, a bigger growth in the economic size proxied as gross domestic products of Ghana and the fourteen members in ECOWAS will yield significantly higher impact on Ghana's bilateral trade volume. A 1% improvement in the economic size of Ghana will lead to 0.57% increase in its bilateral trade. A 1% increase in partners' gross domestic product will produce 0.89% increase in Ghana's trade flows. Trade openness of trade partners in the sub-region plays a pivotal role in the growth of Ghana's bilateral trade as a member of ECOWAS. Improvement in partners' open trade policies is found to have significantly positive effects on bilateral trade flows. Factors such as contiguity and common official language affect Ghana's bilateral trade and highly significant. Sharing a common border has been projected to positively influence Ghana's bilateral trade as high as 200 percent; an indication for more collaboration on the artificial borders between Ghana and the rest of the Community. For common official language, it is predicted that bilateral trade between Ghana and those countries with whom it shares a common language could be higher by over 500 percent. The challenge however is the colonial history of members as the bloc is made up of countries with varying colonial masters, with French colonies being dominant. The effect of this is projected to lower Ghana's trade with members with whom it does not share the same coloniser by 45 percent. This is however measured statistically not significant. Ghana's trade freedom or own policy measure towards openness is however a disincentive to its trade with the economic bloc, as it was found to be negative, but statistically insignificant The distance as a measure of transportation cost, shipping and transaction costs on the borders between the commercial cities of Ghana and trade partners in ECOWAS negatively influence trade flows and highly significant. Although growth in Ghana's population positively affects total trade volumes, it was revealed to be insignificant if combined with gross domestic product or if measured as economic mass. This study demonstrates that gravity model framework is applicable to Ghana's regional trade analysis as a single-case with much emphasis on the potential effects of cross-border, language and economic growth on Ghana's bilateral trade flows. It underscores the relevance of promoting deeper regional integration and calls for further regional collaborations by all stakeholders. This work is arranged into six chapters. First chapter is the introduction; second chapter reviews literature on main concepts and theories; third chapter reviews the methodology used; fourth chapter is the model estimation and data used; fifth chapter discusses the results of the study and finally the sixth chapter draws conclusion and policy recommendations.