Some Peculiarities of the Economic Growth in ECOWAS Countries

Abstract

This article seeks to determine some of the peculiarities of the economic growth in the countries from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Thus, the study is based on the country approach and uses econometric regression tests. In fact, in the context of the determination of the real GDP per capita growth rate of the countries in this region during the period 1987-2014, the results obtained show that it is still weak and unstable. Moreover, the weak convergence that has only been observed beginning with 2008 feeds the hope that ECOWAS can truly improve its level of development despite the heterogeneous nature of the countries. In order to overcome these difficulties, improving the socio-economic performance through the growth rate of real GDP per capita represents, among others, a necessity in relation to economic policy decisions.