ABSTRACT: Despite the potential of regional integration for economic growth, many African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) struggle with fragmented markets and internal inefficiencies. Previous studies often examine integration effects within individual regions, overlooking comprehensive comparative analyses across multiple RECs and their varying responses to recent global economic shocks. This study investigates the impact of regional economic integration on economic growth across six African RECs: AMU, EAC, ECCAS, ECOWAS, IGAD, and SADC. Employing the robust System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimators, the research utilizes a balanced panel dataset from 2002 to 2020 that captures recent global economic shocks, including the global financial crisis between 2008 and 2009, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Key variables include real GDP growth, capital stock estimated using the perpetual inventory method, labor force, intra-regional trade share, education expenditure, and political stability, all drawn from the World Bank Development Indicators and the IMF Trade Statistics. The results of the study reveal that economic growth in African RECs exhibits strong persistence, with lagged GDP growth being consistently positive and significant. Political stability emerges as a crucial growth driver, particularly in AMU, EAC, and SADC. However, capital accumulation shows mixed or adverse effects, suggesting potential inefficiencies or misallocation of investment in various countries. Government expenditure on education and intra-regional trade share are largely insignificant across the regions, highlighting structural weaknesses in human capital development and the limited effectiveness of current integration mechanisms. Diagnostic tests confirm the robustness of the models. These findings underscore significant heterogeneity in growth determinants across African RECs. The identified heterogeneity necessitates context-specific policy interventions for each REC. Governments should prioritize policies that enhance governance and political stability, along with strategies to improve the efficiency and allocation of capital investments. In addition, it is critical to re-evaluate and strengthen current integration mechanisms to foster intra-regional trade and invest more effectively in human capital development to fully harness the potential of regional integration.
Ntembe et al. (Mon,) studied this question.