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Abstract

Economists and policy makers have divergent views on growth effects of cross-border trade thereby necessitating substantial academic and policy discourse, especially with the introduction of trade liberalisation policies in the developing nations across the world. Growth effect of cross-border trade in Nigeria and Cote D’Ivoire was investigated in this paper, using WDI data for 1981 – 2017. Results showed positive trade balances during the period, and empirical evidence that international trade had greater positive than negative effects (1 = 0.047875, 1 = 0.219971; 2 = 0.047875, 2 = -0111329) on economic growth of the countries. The F-stat values of 53.22320 and 41.73925, with 0.0000 p-values for Nigeria and Cote D’Ivoire respectively, provided the empirical evidence of overall effects of trade balances with the other macroeconomic variables on economic growth of the countries Therefore, the paper concluded that international trade was significantly beneficial to the countries and, by extension, West African countries in general, especially under appropriate macroeconomic conditions. Consequently, the paper emphasized the need for Nigeria to re-engineer its cross-border policy mechanisms in favour of greater capital goods importation to boost export production, engender greater export production and, ultimately, engender export-led growth. On the other hand, the Cote D’Ivoire should implement more export-oriented policy thrusts.