Effects of trade policies on external trade performances of ECOWAS countries (1996–2017)†.

The objective of the article is to analyse the effects of trade policies on foreign trade performance (manufacturing exports and imports) of the Economic Community of West African States over the period 1996–2017. Using a new continuous trade policy index and controlling for the endogeneity of the variables of interest, the findings indicate that the trade policies significantly increase imports but much more exports. Furthermore, the analysis of the interaction model reveals that the effects of trade policies on manufacturing trade performance increase with financial development and the rate of cellular mobile subscriptions. These findings have implications for economic policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]