Industrial Policy Recommendations

African economies need to increase their industrial base for the purpose of producing more and more processed goods. This requirement prescribes that ECOWAS countries favor processed goods in their quest for intra-community trade expansion. The agricultural products that are heavily imported should also be favored.

Table 5 shows twelve products that are recommended for Benin to develop. The list is extracted from Tables A1 and A2 in appendix and it includes fruits and juices thereof, flours, sugar extracted from cane, live poultry, fabrics of cotton, cement, bags for packing goods and water. The potential importers of each product are indicated by a "1" in the corresponding column of the table. Each of these products accounted for less than 1% of the Beninese trade in 2015. Therefore, these niches still have substantial possibilities to expand.

The development of export niches for the agricultural sectors (fruits and vegetables, tapioca, sugar cane, poultry) can help create jobs for youth, women and people living and rural areas. This effort should be accompanied by the development of a light industry (e.g., sugar, vegetable oil, flours fabrics of cotton, cement, etc.) to process the agricultural products and create jobs in urban area. The development of these export niches will require substantial investments in physical and human capital. This will also require an open dialogue among the authorities of ECOWAS member states whose objective is to guaranty that the regional trade agreements are effectively enforced

Rachidi KOTCHONI / Cyriaque EDON - Product Space and Regional Trade in the ECOWAS

13

Table 5: Excerpt of the niches of RCA and LCA of Benin

The potential importers of each product are indicated by a "1" in the corresponding column Potential importers

Rachidi KOTCHONI / Cyriaque EDON - Product Space and Regional Trade in the ECOWAS

14 7. Conclusion

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the export structure of ECOWAS member states for the purpose of identifying the export niches that they can exploit in order to increase intra-community trade.

To attain this objective, we first identify the set of products in which each ECOWAS country has a Revealed or Latent Comparative Advantage. Next, we identify the products in which each ECOWAS country has a Revealed Excess Demand. The possibilities for intra-community trade expansion lie at the intersection of the niches of comparative advantage of each country and the niches of excess demand of the other countries.

Our analyses suggest that immense possibilities of trade expansion exist within the ECOWAS area. These possibilities concern the niches of revealed as well as latent comparative advantage. The potentially interesting export niches pertain mostly to the agricultural sector and the light industry. This is fortunate given that a joint development of the agricultural sector and the light industry has the potential to favor an economic growth process that leads to a shared prosperity. Our results suggest that the most diverse economies (as measured by the concentration of the export basket) are also those that enjoy the larger number of niches of latent comparative advantage.

Given that our analyses are done at four digits HS codes, our results should be interpreted with caution.

This is because all goods that belong to the same HS code are treated as identical. An empirical analysis at six digit HS codes would lead to more refined results. Nevertheless, the analysis conducted here can be used as starting point to conduct more specific investigations at the product level.

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1 Analyse des mouvements d’entrée et de sortie de la pauvreté alimentaire en Afrique de l’Ouest : une étude de cas du Bénin à l’aide d’un logit multinomial sur données de panel : Résumé : Cet article analyse la dynamique de la pauvreté alimentaire, en particulier les mouvements d’entrées et de sorties de la pauvreté ainsi que les facteurs qui les déterminent.

Partant des données issues de l’enquête modulaire Intégrée sur les Conditions de vie des Ménages au Bénin (2006 ; 2009 et 2011), consigné dans les annales de l’Institut Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Analyse Économique, les mouvements d’entrées et de sorties de la pauvreté alimentaire sont analysés à l’aide d’une matrice de transition. Les régressions de type logit multinomial nous ont permis de mettre en exergue les déterminants de l’appartenance à chaque cellule de la matrice de transition ainsi que la situation de pauvreté chronique et transitoire. Il ressort de cette analyse qu’entre 2006 et 2011, 44.37% des ménages pauvres initiaux sont sortis de la pauvreté, tandis que 55.69% des ménages initiaux y demeurent. Aussi 30.69% des ménages tombent dans la pauvreté en 2011.le seuil de pauvreté alimentaire est passé de 123317 à 292143 en 2011. Le niveau de pauvreté et les conditions de vie n’ont pas changé de façon significative, malgré le progrès dans l’atteinte de l’objectif relatif à la réduction de la pauvreté.

Mots clés : Pauvreté Alimentaire ; Mouvements Entrée et Sortie ; Données de Panels, logit Multinomial, Bénin.

JEL Classification: C33; I30; I32.

1. Introduction La plupart des travaux sur la pauvreté qui ont permis d’élaborer les politiques de lutte contre

la pauvreté dans les pays en développement tendent à se focaliser sur la mesure de la pauvreté monétaire à un moment donné, ou à des comparaisons de la pauvreté dans le temps en se servant des données d’enquêtes menées à des dates différentes (MEDEV,2004,Fatou CISSE, 2009).

Sur cette base, Oxley et al (2000), estiment que les indices statistiques de pauvreté ne renseignent toujours pas sur le degré de mobilité, ni sur la longueur du temps pendant lequel les ménages sont restés dans la pauvreté. Bien plus, elles s’appesantissent sur la pauvreté monétaire. Or, dans le cas des pays en développement, la pauvreté alimentaire est permanente.

Ces dernières années, elle est développée et soutenue par l’école dite des besoins de base et ceux de l’école des capacités et des fonctionnements avec Sen Amartya comme chef de file.

Sen Amartya souligne que, les pauvres ne sont pas seulement ceux qui ont un revenu faible, mais aussi ceux qui ne peuvent pas satisfaire leurs besoins essentiels relatifs à la nourriture, au logement, à l’habillement, à la santé, à l’éducation,….etc.