ARTYKUŁ
Panel analysis of the impact of unemployment on sustainable Economic Growth in West Africa
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Department of Economics,, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago - Iwoye, Nigeria
Submission date: 2025-01-13
Final revision date: 2025-05-07
Acceptance date: 2025-06-20
Online publication date: 2025-07-24
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ABSTRACT
Insufficient employment opportunities in West Africa continue to weaken and potentially hamper growth sustainability. Previous
studies have underexplored the interrelationships between unemployment and economic growth. This study examines the rela
tionship between unemployment and sustainable economic growth in West Africa. The core of the study lies in the neoclassical
growth model while incorporating endogenous growth theory. The study combines descriptive analysis with the application of
econometric estimations. The annual panel data covering the period of 1991 to 2023 were collected from United Nations Deve
lopment Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank (WB) World Development Indicators (WDI) databases. The estimation technique
employed is panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (p-ARDL), covering all the sixteen countries of West Africa. The analysis revealed
that unemployment has a significant positive impact on long-term economic growth in West Africa.