STATE FRAGILITY AND MACROECONOMIC OUTCOME: A COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF WAMZ COUNTRIES
Abstract
Countries all around the world are experiencing different forms and measures of fragility. The fragility of states could arise from institutional weaknesses, violent conflicts, natural resources, ethnic compositions, unfavourable socio-economic developments, and shocks that may have arisen from domestic or international systems. Given that, globalization enhances regional trade, this study was carried out to examine empirically the effect of state fragility measures on the macroeconomic outcome (gross domestic product per capita) of WAMZ countries. The study utilized annual panel/pooled data from 2003-2022. The results from the study revealed that while Nigeria and Sierra Leone were affected by all the measures of state fragility, the economies of Liberia and Ghana were majorly affected by security threats. However, Ghana and Guinea’s economies were negatively affected by the security threats index, human rights and rule of law index, and public services index. Conclusively, the study observed that majority of the WAMZ countries lack the needed resilience (in terms of institutional strength, capacity, social cohesion, state security, and development) to respond adequately and effectively to shocks that come from these state fragility indicies.