Is Trade Facilitation a Deterrent or Stimulus for Foreign Direct Investment in Africa?

This article investigates whether trade facilitation acts as a stimulus or deterrent for foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow to Africa by employing six key components relating to cross-border trading on a panel of 26 African countries over the period of 2004 to 2014. The study employs both the fixed effects model and difference-generalized method of moments. The empirical results show that trade facilitation significantly hinders FDI inflows both in the single (aggregated) and multiple (disaggregated) models. This apart, the critical roles of gross domestic product (GDP), infrastructural development (FST), inflation (INFL), and trade openness (TO) are equally affirmed.