REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIA; A MEMBER OF ECOWAS

Abstract

This study attempts to ascertain how regional economic integration has impacted on the growth of the Nigerian economy as a member of and thus to assess the need for regional economic integration in developing countries. Using gross domestic product as a stable function which is dependent on a number of economic factors like export, import and balance of trade and relying on the ordinary least squares method; the study covers the period 1970 to 2008. The empirical result indicated that both import and balance of trade had positive linear relationship with gross domestic product, contrary to export which has a negative relationship with the nation’s output. The policy implication of the result is that imports and balance of trade in regionally integrated markets have powerful influence on the nation’s output. The paper posits that to achieve greater macroeconomic goals from regionally integrated markets, there is need to prudently manage import and export to achieve favourable balance of trade and balance of payments through diversifying the export economy predicated on a strong production base.