Does External Trade Improve Life Expectancy? A Long Run Equilibrium Analysis on English Speaking West African Countries

Authors

  • OCHINANWATA, Chinedu , UZOMBA, Peter Chika , ONODUGO, Vincent A. , ANOWOR, Oluchukwu F

Abstract

It is incontrovertible that a key index for measuring welfare, living standard and societal
development, is life expectancy. Consequently, there has been a plethora of studies that focused on
examining how various aspects of human endeavour impact life expectancy. This study specifically
examined the relationship between external trade and life expectancy among English speaking West African
Countries (EsWACs). Prior studies on this subject concentrated on structuring predictive models using
mortality trend or building parameter life expectancy with samples of individuals; but none has considered
the vestiges of underdevelopment that have led to reduced life expectancy overtime in the developing
economies even in the face of increase in the volume of trade. It therefore departs methodologically from the
classical ordinary least square (OLS) and 1st generation panel econometric techniques in constructing
balanced panel data structure then employed second generation panel data econometric techniques. The
results show that external trade has not improved life expectancy in EsWACs. This therefore infers that the
impact of external trade on healthcare is negligible and has infinitesimal effect on life expectancy in the subregion. The study recommends inter alia, that countries should pay more attention on variables that improves
human capital significantly as they will help improve longevity.

Published

2020-04-30

Issue

Section

Articles