International trade and economic growth: The role of institutional factors and ethnic diversity in sub‐Saharan Africa

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this article is to analyse the role of trade on sub‐Saharan countries growth considering the effect of governance and ethnic diversity. We start by the framework of the augmented Solow growth model in which we include a set of control variables like trade as openness measure. The estimated model uses Pooled Mean Group technique on a sample of 44 countries of sub‐Saharan Africa during 1980–2017. It emerges that trade has a positive and significant influence on per capita income in the sub‐Saharan zone. This positive effect can also be empowered by improving the level of governance and by ethnic fragmentation. This fact shows the importance of a good political governance and the mastering of trade policies to gain more from trade openness for these countries.