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Statistical Analysis of Trade-Development Linkage in Nigeria: The COVID-19 Era and Beyond

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Aim of the Study: In this study, the trade-development impact of COVID-19 is examined for the period spanning 2020-2021 covering 24 months. Some economic variables were converted appropriately into monthly basis to give similar frequency of data. Methodology: The theoretical framework us based on the system theory and thereafter the two-stage least regression technique applied was applied on the relationship between each of trade and per capita income and the COVID-19 related variables including total confirmed cases, total death retarded in one way or the other trade relation and per capita income growth. Total number of laboratory tests retarded both trade and per capita income level during the period. Sensitivity analysis shows contrary effects of export and import trade on per capita income. Findings: Research findings show that COVID-19 related variables including total confirmed cases, total death retarded in one way or the other trade relation and per capita income growth. Total number of laboratory tests retarded both trade and per capita income level during the period. Besides, sensitivity analysis shows contrary effects of export and import trade on per capita income; a reason attributed to overdependence and low domestic production. In all the economic variables employed as explanatory, only exchange rate showed a significant positive impact on trade and per capita income level. Conclusion: The study concluded that the economy should encourage huge domestic production to reduce over dependence during and beyond the COVID-19 era. This aside from increasing domestic consumption will encourage revenue inflow that can serve as bail out in the period of global scarcity of funds.
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THE PROGRESS
Vol.4, No.3 (September, 2023), Pp.21-29
ISSN (Online): 2958-292X, ISSN (Print): 2958-2911
© 2023 The authors, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 21
Statistical Analysis of Trade-Development Linkage in
Nigeria: The COVID-19 Era and Beyond
Jimoh O Saka1, Iyabo F Oyenuga2, Mohammed O. Ologundudu3, Lateef O Saka4,
Adeshola O Afariogun5
1Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos, Nigeria.
2Lecturer, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, The Polytechnic Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.
3Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Mountain-Top University, Ogun State, Nigeria.
4MSC Student, Economics, Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos, Nigeria.
5PhD Scholar, Department of Economics, Crawford University, Igbesa, Ogun State, Nigeria.
Correspondence: jaystatistics@yahoo.com1
ABSTRACT
Aim of the Study: In this study, the trade-development impact of COVID-19 is
examined for the period spanning 2020-2021 covering 24 months. Some
economic variables were converted appropriately into monthly basis to give
similar frequency of data.
Methodology: The theoretical framework us based on the system theory and
thereafter the two-stage least regression technique applied was applied on the
relationship between each of trade and per capita income and the COVID-19
related variables including total confirmed cases, total death retarded in one way
or the other trade relation and per capita income growth. Total number of
laboratory tests retarded both trade and per capita income level during the
period. Sensitivity analysis shows contrary effects of export and import trade on
per capita income.
Findings: Research findings show that COVID-19 related variables including
total confirmed cases, total death retarded in one way or the other trade relation
and per capita income growth. Total number of laboratory tests retarded both
trade and per capita income level during the period. Besides, sensitivity analysis
shows contrary effects of export and import trade on per capita income; a reason
attributed to overdependence and low domestic production. In all the economic
variables employed as explanatory, only exchange rate showed a significant
positive impact on trade and per capita income level.
Conclusion: The study concluded that the economy should encourage huge
domestic production to reduce over dependence during and beyond the COVID-
19 era. This aside from increasing domestic consumption will encourage revenue
inflow that can serve as bail out in the period of global scarcity of funds.
Keywords: Trade, Development, COVID-19, Two-Stage Least Square.
Article History
Received:
May 17, 2023
Revised:
September 11, 2023
Accepted:
September 25, 2023
Published:
September 30, 2023
Original Article http://hnpublisher.com
22
Introduction
COVID-19, a pandemic which emerged in December 2019 in China has become a universal challenge to
health conditions. The pandemic has tampered with the situations in the global economy creating what is
often termed a New Normal. The encircling capacity of the pandemic has resulted in different
nomenclatures from various angles. For example, Gorbalenya et al. (2020) assert that the International
Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) renamed the pandemic as severe acute respiratory syndrome
coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The detrimental effects of the pandemic have penetrated deeply into the
world economy leading to a pronounced slack in economic activities including prolonged macroeconomic
challenges. The spread of the virus which on a daily basis led to increasing levels of infections, death rate,
among others initiated several government containment measures around the globe. While these measures
such as lockdown and social distances became very necessary, the immediate negative impact remained
inevitable (McKibbin & Fernando, 2020). The threats of the pandemic are not only on sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) alone but as well making them almost unattainable. Besides, the sustainable
development derivatives including tourism, business, trade, management, etc have been in a state of
deterioration. Many countries in the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) including Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have been thrown into social, socio-economic and political
challenges and varying conflicts including corruption and poor governance system and these challenges
have made the region highly vulnerable to COVID-19 pandemic since its emergence. Nigeria despite
being one of the strongest economies in African continent (Kiangoi, 2020) is beset with fundamental
challenges high poverty level, poor quality education, among others which are further aggravated by
poor governance system. The existing fragile progress recorded on these development indicators and
other key SDG goals gives room for the COVID-19 outbreak to alter the process of development as set
out in the 2030 Agenda. The intensiveness of the pandemic has shown a rising trend in the spread
globally. For example, Nigeria confirmed a total of 46,577 cases early August of 2020. The health crisis
emanating from the pandemic exacerbated the ongoing inequalities and making further creating more
dimensions. As a result, Nigeria, overpowered by the informal sector, experiences a large decline in trade,
welfare and consumption levels and demonstrated by the worsening economic performance over time.
Based on recent rankings, Nigeria fell in bottom of 10 countries on an aggregate score of 100 in terms of
progress made on all 17 SDGs. The rise in the COVID-19 pandemic spread rate has continuously
weakened the growth and development plan in Nigeria. As of Q1 of 2020, growth rate dropped by about -
0.23% points basis compared to Q1 of 2019 and then -0.68% points in comparison with Q4 of 2019
(Proshare, 2020). However, the economy expanded in real terms in 2021 with about 3.4%, the fastest
growth since 2014. The pandemic has caused economic difficulties as experienced from the deteriorating
international trade, travel and domestic consumption which are consequences of containment measures
put in place.
Motivation for the Study
Trade is expected to increase vaccines production and creating an inclusive growth thus, helping to
combat the pandemic and move towards SDGs. Nigeria’s trading activities shoot up in 2021 both at the
domestic and international levels recording first trade surplus in 2021 compared to negative trade balance
in the previous quarters of acute COVID-19 attack. The post COVID-19 era is to benefit the Nigerian
trade sector through the African Continental Free Trade and will further boost trading activities among
African nations. Attaining the SDGs which proves almost difficult following the pandemic effect and the
possibility of achieving the goals in the post COVID era creates a motivation for this study.
Objective of the Study
Major objective of the study is to analyse the effect of COVID-19 related variables including total
confirmed cases, total death, total number of laboratory tests and macroeconomic variables such as
exchange rate, interest rate etc on trade and per capita income in Nigeria
23
Literature Review
Generally, it is of the belief that COVID-19 effects on trade flow among countries remains noticeable
through reduction in the volume of imports and exports and thus further affecting countries income levels,
these effects however still vary across countries. This is attributable the role which trade costs play across
countries. Trade costs are linked to economic policy compared to other policy instruments such as tariffs
which appear to be less important. WTO (2021) has stressed that trade differences are expected among
high, low and middle- income countries on the basis of what constitute trade costs. Information flow,
transport and costs of transactions appear to be relevant in engaging in trading activities between high-
income countries whereas differences in trade policy and regulatory differences explain trade between
low and middle income countries. Besides, issue of products composition is also another good reason and
by convention, average skills put into production are more intensified to increase quality and spread of
products in high income countries compare to low and middle income countries (Minondo, & Requena-
Silvente, 2013). In this case, some specific products may require more technical knowledge and this may
involve interventions of skills from many other countries (Barbero, de Lucio & Rodrı´guez-Crespo
(2021)). However, it has been made clear that countries’ participation in global chain activities is
dependent on their levels of income and consequent upon their objectives in focus. For example, high
income countries focus more on achieving growth and sustainability while attraction of foreign direct
investment and increase in economic status can be fundamental to low and middle income countries.
Also, Jobs availability is with lower share than what is needed in the home country and as such makes
employment opportunities be more sensitive to the lock down as containment measure in the COVID-19.
It is also not an exaggeration to mention that health care commodities are not affordable in some low
income countries and as such effect of COVID-19 may be more pronounced for such countries with
unaffordable medical supplies and hence negative impact on trade is more obvious and retard sustained
growth.
Given the above discussion, it is expected that different countries respond to trade shocks which emanate
from COVID-19 differently on the basis of their income levels. This has not been widely explored in the
literature research on COVID-19 and trade.
The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a decline in the globalisation process. Some
scholars are of the opinions that COVID-19 may likely end the globalisation process others have
predicted that it will change it dimension (The Economist 2020; Yip, 2021) while others admit that it will
not (Altman, 2020). Ideally, globalisation has created numerous gains to the world economy but at the
same time it has been the cause of supply chain risks in which nations, corporations and individuals
experience ((Goldin & Mariathasan, 2015; Scheibe & Blackhurst, 2018). The risks are often experienced
in the areas widespread and long period of scarcity of commodity or service for which there may probably
not be alternatives (Sheffi & Lynn, 2014). This invariably retards trade flows, integration and sustainable
growth.
Highly globalised nations including United Kingdom, Italy and France were hard hit (Ahluwalia, 2020).
The process of globalisation was induced economic and social linkages which have equally enhanced
interdependence of many types paving way for the spread of the virus (Mas-Coma, Jones, & Marty,
2020). In reaction to this, borders were close, thus limiting trade and business activities. Governments
began to contend access to few resources such as oil, vaccines, personal protective equipment (PPE) and
ventilators ((New York Times, 2020; Chowdhury et al., 2020). With this situation, this has a ripple effect
on global supply networks and affecting trade and development.
The advent of COVID-19 may be linked to the systems theory. Systems theory considers possible sources
of emerging problems and observes the individual impact on the economic system. A system itself is a
connection of things or partly connected thereby forming a complex whole. Based on (Ackoff, 1981, pp.
15-16) description, in a system, each element impacts on the functioning of the whole, is being affected
24
by at least any other element in the system and that all possible subgroups of elements are considered to
have the first two properties as identified.
Empirical studies have been carried out on trade and previous and current pandemic within a short period.
Fernandes & Tang (2020) estimated the effect of first SARS pandemic on Chinese firm. Trade data
employed was based on quarterly transaction-level an results showed that Chinese regions existing in a
local transmission of the pandemic witnessed a reduction in the margins of trade and that trade from more
skilled and capital-intensive products was less sensitive to the pandemic. Studies have equally focused on
COVID-19 trade shock but then limited to certain countries. Bu¨chel, Legge, Pochon & Wegmu¨ller
(2020) examined the case of Switzerland through combination of weekly and monthly trade data during
the lockdown for mid-March through end of July using information disaggregated by product and trade
partner. Their study found among other findings, that Swiss trade dropped 11% in comparison with the
corresponding period of 2019 during the lockdown signifying a trade shock proving more prominent than
the previous 2009 trade shock. Kejzar & Velic (2020) employed a gravity model for the EU member
states for June 2012-May 2020, to examine the role of chain forward linkages for COVID-19 demand
shocks transmission. They observed that as pandemic spread and more measures taken both demand and
labour supply shortage, including production declined.
Methodology and Data
The theoretical framework for this study centers on the system theory which considers possible sources
and evaluate the role of each individual problem plays in the system. As an application to COVID-19, the
pandemic is seen as an upsurge constituting problems and impacting negatively on the health and
economic status of the global economy as a whole, Nigeria inclusive.
In what follows, the research questions answered are as given below:
How do COVID-19 and macroeconomic environment affect export trade and development in Nigeria
and how do COVID-19 and the macroeconomic environment affect import trade and development in
Nigeria?
On a general note the effect of COVID-19 on trade and development of the Nigeria economy is in focus.
This theory in this case guides in the model specification as follows:
exp ( 19, )
( 19, )
( 19, )
ort f COVID MACENV
import f COVID MACENV
pci f COVID MACENV



0 1 2 3 4 5 1
exp ln n
i
i
ort sprdrt tcc td tf t t X
(1)
0 1 2 3 4 5 1
ln n
i
i
import sprdrt tcc td tf t t X
(2)
0 1 2 3 4 5 1
ln n
i
i
pci sprdrt tcc td tf t t X
(3)
In the functional specifications above,
19COVID
defines the pandemic related variables and the
is defined as the macroeconomic environment reflecting the contribution of macroeconomic
variables in the system. This is stated in a more explicit form in the specifications (1), (2) and (3). The
export
and
import
represent the export and import volumes respectively,
sprdrt
represents the spread
rate of the virus,
tcc
is total confirmed cases,
td
is total death resulting from the virus,
tf
represents total
25
fatality case, and
lntt
defines the total number of laboratory tests.
i
X
shows variables representing the
macroeconomic environment such as exchange rate, interest rate and per capita income aside from the
trade variables and
is error term.
0
,…………,
5
are parameters to be estimated. The per capita
income measures the level of development though this has been partly contested in literature due to
inequality arising from this particularly in the developing world. But because this available, the study
intends employing it.
Data Analysis Technique
Estimation technique is based on the two-stage least square regression on the basis that in the equations
some specific variable act as dependent in one scenario and independent in the other. Two-stage least is a
special instrumental variable estimation technique that corrects issue of endogeneity within variables in a
given specification.
Data for this study is obtained for the period 2020-2021 covering 24 months altogether. The study
employs monthly data based on existing COVID-19 cases. However, some economic variables needed to
be converted into monthly bases to give data in similar frequency.
Data on COVID-19 related variables from National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). The export and
import volume variables were obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)
Results
In order to avoid spurious regression results, the study carried out a stationarity test of variables
employed. Variables that were stationary in their level forms include total number of laboratory tests,
total confirmed cases and total death. However, spread rate, exchange rate, interest rate, export volume
and total fertility rate were stationary in their first differences while per capita income and import volume
remained stationary in their second differences (results not shown due to space constraint).
Table 1: Two-Stage Least Square Regression
Dep.
EXP
Prob.
IMP
Prob.
C
0.01
0.93
-97.38
0.40
SPRD RT
1.60
0.86
-0.01
0.78
EXR
1.60
0.03
1.29
0.11
INT
27.32
0.44
36.66
0.34
EXPORT
-------
------
-------
------
IMPORT
------
------
------
------
PCI
-23.59
0.14
5.73
0.73
TCC
-0.03
0.55
-0.09
0.14
TD
-0.04
0.46
0.10
0.08
TF
0.09
0.12
0.04
0.49
TNLT
-0.16
0.55
-0.32
0.28
R2 ADJ.
0.75
0.66
PROB. F
0.00
0.00
PROB. J STAT
0.00
0.00
INST. RANK
11
11
DW
1.61
2.36
Source: Author’s computation using E-views
Table 1 clearly shows the two-stage least square regression for the export equation, import equation and
the per capita income equations.
26
Discussion
Table 1 shows the estimation results of the trade and per capita income equations containing a mixture of
COVID-19 related variables and economic variables as explanatory variables. First, focusing on the
export and import equations, exchange rate variable impacted positively but not significant on export and
import volumes during the 24 month-period of the analysis. This points to the fact that appreciation of the
domestic currency lowers importation costs as the economy can import more volumes.
Interest rate variable demonstrated a positive impact on both export and import during the period.
However, a rising interest rate was expected to cause a declining investment which thus could lead to
reduction in export volume.
Per capita income related positively with import but negatively with export volume. Thus, increase in the
level of development can lead to trade orientation in the case of import. It however, gives a contrary sign
to export volume.
Table 2: Two-Stage Least Square Regression
Dep.
PCI
Prob.
PCI
Prob.
C
3.94
0.01
4.67
0.005
SPRD RT
-0.0004
0.62
-0.0005
0.56
EXR
0.02
0.13
0.01
0.52
INT
-0.41
0.48
-0.73
0.24
EXPORT
-0.01
0.14
-------
-----
IMPORT
------
------
0.001
0.73
PCI
------
-----
------
------
TCC
0.001
0.10
0.002
0.03
TD
-0.002
0.04
-0.002
0.06
TF
0.001
0.40
0.0002
0.82
TNLT
-0.002
0.58
-0.001
0.82
R2 ADJ.
0.20
0.07
PROB. F
0.19
0.36
PROB. J STAT
0.00
0.00
INST. RANK
11
11
DW
1.03
1.02
Source: Author’s computation using E-views
On the per capita income equation, the sensitivity analysis was performed in terms of substituting export
for import and vice versa within the explanatory variables. While import related positively with per capita
income, export related negatively. The positive relationship of import with per capita income may be
attributed to Nigeria’s high level of dependence on foreign goods and as such greater part of income is
expended on foreign consumption. The negative relationship of export with per capita income
demonstrated lack of self reliance and inadequate production base. Exchange rate appreciation favoured
the level of development in both cases. Thus, currency appreciation is expected to reshape the naira
position and put it on a steady equilibrium at the domestic and international level. For the future and
given a large domestic production, appreciation of the naira may still be further pursued even beyond the
pandemic era.
Interest rate showed a negative impact in both cases. This is expected in the sense that a lower interest
rate increases investment, output level and thus sustained economic growth. Given adequate containment
measures and macroeconomic stability, this is expected to trend beyond COVID-19 era
Turning to the COVID-19 related variables, total number of laboratory tests for COVID-19 related
negatively on export, import and per capita income (see tables 1 and 2). Thus, increase in the number of
laboratory tests is demonstration of the effect of the pandemic. This subsequently reduced trade relation
27
and development level during the period. Results also show that spread rate reduced import volume and
per capita income, total confirmed cases reduced export and import volumes, and total death resulting
from COVID-19 reduced export and per capita income during the 24 month period of analysis but
significant for the per capita income. The reduction in export arsing from COVID-19 is inline with
Fugazza (2020) who indicated that total commodity export in this case to China reduced due to COVID-
19 pandemic. In the same vein, export trade reduction and welfare decline representing per capita income
due to COVID-19 also agree with the findings of Manasseh (2021) who carried out a study on the impact
of COVID-19 pandemic on export, welfare and economic growth in Nigeria with refrence to pre and post
era.
Explanatory variables have a high explanatory power up to about 75% variation in the export equation
whereas little is explained about the variation in per capita income where import was part of the
explanatory variable. Thus, other per capita income determinants were probably not included due to data
issues.
The export and import equations are not affected autocorrelation compared to the per capita income
equation. The model is adequate in each case on the basis of the F-probability values
Conclusion
Trade-development impact of COVID-19 was examined during the 2020-2021 period on a monthly basis
accounting for about 24 month’s duration. Some background information showed detrimental effects of
COVDI-19 on health and economic conditions including trade and income growth during the period.
Application of the two-stage least regression technique showed that in most cases, COVID-19 related
variables including total confirmed cases, total death retarded in one way or the other trade relation and
per capita income growth. Total number of laboratory tests retarded both trade and per capita income
level during the period. In all the economic variables employed as explanatory, only exchange rate
showed a positive impact on trade and per capita income level and further indicated the significance of
domestic currency appreciation. The sensitivity analysis carried out demonstrated that export and import
volumes gave contrary impacts on per capita income level. This was attributed to over dependence and
poor domestic production base. The Nigerian economy should plan for further containment measures
beyond the era of COVID-19 to reduce any pandemic stress. The containment measures should be well
complemented by increasing the supply chain which should rely more on large domestic production. This
will not only reduce the negative effect on health but also curtail economic problems that may arise
subsequently. Stability of the economy is also quite essential through policy formulation that could drive
the economy towards appreciable growth path.
28
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the various data sources including the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and
the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for making data collection of variables possible. The
macroeconomic data was further converted to monthly frequency for uniformity sake.
Conflict of Interest
Authors have no conflict of interest.
Funding Source
The authors received no funding to conduct this study.
ORCID iDs
Jimoh O Saka 1 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1905-7114
Iyabo F Oyenuga 2 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7606-2887
Mohammed O. Ologundudu 3 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7064-1661
Lateef O Saka 4 https://orcid.org/0009-0002-8666-1274
Adeshola O Afariogun 5 https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7555-5360
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This paper highlights the role of supply chain linkages for the transmission of COVID‐19 induced shocks based on the monthly trade of the European Union Member States during the first wave of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Using the framework of the gravity model, we find an overall decline of over 20% in trade among EU countries following the COVID‐19 outbreak. Both supply and demand shocks are shown to contribute to this trade decline associated with COVID‐19 in the origin and destination country proxied by either infection rate or policy stringency index. While import demand shocks have an immediate effect on trade decline, the trade becomes increasingly sensitive to the COVID‐19 situation in the origin country over time. Moreover, the results confirm that forward global value chain (GVC) linkages act as a channel for the transmission of (demand) shocks in supply chain trade. Indeed, an increase in the incidence of COVID‐19 cases in the destination country leads to a larger decrease in domestic exports of intermediate goods in those destination countries with which a country has stronger forward linkages, i.e. in partners positioned further downstream. We also find the “China effect”, with the transmission of the COVID‐19 shock from the partner country amplified when the share of supply chain trade with China is higher. On the other hand, we fail to find robust evidence for the transmission of COVID‐19‐induced shocks via backward linkages.
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