Governance, Infrastructure and Regional Integration: The Case of CEMAC

Abstract

The objective of this study is to determine the effects of governance and physical infrastructure on regional integration, more specifically trade integration in the CEMAC region. The approach used is based on the gravity model augmented with the Pseudo Maximum Likelihood method of the Fish Law (PPML). This model is estimated on a panel of Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) countries and its main partners over the period 2006-2016. The results thus obtained show that governance is a barrier to integration and maritime openness has a positive and significant effect on trade integration. It has resulted in 7.7 times the community's trade.

Unlocking the Relationship between Land Finance and Regional Integration

“…Theoretically, capital is commonly viewed as a fundamental factor in achieving regional cohesion [29][30][31]. This largely attributes to its important role in the reduction of regional economic, and social disparities, and enhancement of local governments' cooperation [32,33].…”

“…Governments at different levels embedding themselves in the financial expenditure competition of public services, social security, and infrastructure with gradual change of political assessment system. This will undoubtedly exacerbate the fiscal gap [33]. In the long period, regional integration based on economic linkages and regional cooperation has a complete self-financing mechanism [14].…”

“…Academics have long paid attention to regional integration, and formed research teams to focus on "new regionalism" and "multi-centralism" [29,30]. Regional integration is characterized by complexity and diversity-many scholars constructed measurement systems from the perspective of trade, population mobility, and other indicators [31][32][33]. As a result, existing measurement systems and indices have various discrepancies, and sometimes presents contradictory.…”

“…"Regional-biased" development strategies, such as integration of the Yangtze River Delta region, the construction of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, have largely raised the superiority of particular areas in the competition of cross-regional or intra-regional integration. Thirdly, the financial situation of local government is a key factor affecting the process of regional integration [33]. The government's financial pressure largely limits the development of regional integration, and a huge fiscal gap lags the inter-regional cooperation and transformation of local government functions.…”