Economic Growth and Unemployment Issues in Ten (10) Selected West African Countries: A Panel Data Analysis

The economic growth of nations continue to be one of the main issues that economists have been interested in analyzing. In effect, several theories have emerged to explain the growth of nations including the Okun’s law which tests the relationship between economic growth and unemployment. Using the World Bank Dataset, the study tested the validity of Okun's Law in West Africa by employing fixed effect regressions to control for inconsistencies of the OLS estimates due to omitted variable bias. The random and time-fixed effect regressions confirm the validity of the Okun's Law in West Africa. The time-fixed effect regression shows that, economic growth will decline by 0.311 annually for every unit increase in the rate of unemployment. Time variant effects such as changes in policy provides a stronger case for the effect of unemployment rate volatility on the growth of these economies. It is therefore recommended that, various stakeholders adopt efficient fiscal and monetary policies aimed at lowering the rate of unemployment thereby expanding economic growth. One of such policies could be the reduction of the high corporate tax rates in the region that is bedeviling African countries by preventing industries and businesses from being built.