Geography of trade: Investigating the differential impact of Export performance on Economic growth between landlocked and coastal African countries

This study aims to investigate geographically mediated differential influence of export on economic growth across 24 coastal and 10 landlocked African economies during 2007 to 2023. The study employed panel ARDL approach PMG estimator to empirically test the hypothesis that geographic context fundamentally influences the short and long-run relationship between export and growth, it addresses significant literature gap in the area. Further panel cointegration and Granger causality tests are used. The results show a significant stable long-run equilibrium relationship exist among the export, growth and conditioning factors (logistic performance, infrastructure, political stability and official exchange rate), with weaker impact of export for landlocked economy’s growth (0.26%), as compared to (0.37%) for coastal counterparts in the long-run. This differential impact is attributed to the combined effect of logistic constraints, infrastructure deficiencies and transit dependence of landlocked countries. Additionally, the causality analysis also revealed different causality relationship, in coastal countries economic growth causes export, while a bidirectional causation exists between the two variables in landlocked countries. The study goes beyond one-size-fits-all recommendations, by offering a geographically conditioned theoretical and empirical framework and contributes significantly. The study concludes that the effectiveness of export-led growth hypothesis is conditioned by geographical factors. Therefore, growth policies need to be geographic specific, coastal countries shall need to use ports as regional hubs, improve logistics and infrastructure as well as strength domestic demand to drive export, while landlocked counterparts shall focus on regional transit diplomacy, infrastructure development, political stability and value addition.