GLOBALISATION: BLESSING OR CURSE FOR SUB SAHARAN AFRICA COMPETITIVENESS

Macroeconomic competitiveness is crucial for long term development of national economies. The main objective of this paper is to determine the impact of globalisation on country level competitiveness in 27 sub Saharan African countries. Data for the study covers the period 2002 – 2018. The data were collected from multiple sources and analysed using the fixed effects model and Generalised Method of Moments. Results from data analysis revealed that the benefit of globalisation of these countries outweigh the cost as globalisation was found to exert a positive significant impact on macroeconomic competitiveness. Other factors affecting competitiveness include previous value competitiveness and governance captured by democracy, government effectiveness and regulatory quality. Further result indicates that globalisation was significantly more effective in countries out of the Franc CFA zone.governance was found to amplify the effect of globalisation on competitiveness though the modulating effect was statistically insignificant. Globalisation is a blessing to sub Saharan Africa provided a number of actions are taken to grasp all the opportunities that it offers. It becomes therefore imperative for these countries to implement a sound macroeconomic environment that will permit globalisation to fully play its positive effects on country competitiveness.