Determinants of private investment in selected ECOWAS countries in Africa

Abstract

The main focus of this study is the evaluation and / or examination of the determinants of private investment among the selected ECOWAS countries. The selected countries include Cote d' Ivoire, Ghana, Gambia and Nigeria. In the context of ECOWAS, these countries are emerging economies. Panel data for these selected countries covered the period 1986 to 2022.The study adopted the fixed effects and random effects panel estimation techniques in the analysis of our econometric models. The selection between the fixed effects and random effects was done using the Hausman test. The results indicated preference for the fixed effects over random effects. Over all, the results of the fixed effects indicated that all the determinants except inflation, money supply and credit to the private sector in the ECOWAS region were significant in explaining the performance of domestic private investment. But in the context of the random effects, all the determinants except credit to the private sector were significant in explaining the nature of the behaviour of domestic private investment in the ECOWAS region. Keywords: Determinants, Domestic Private Investment, Panel Data, ECOWAS, Africa. JEL Classification Code: E22