Macroeconomic Determinants of Economic Complexity in Selected Sub-Sahara Africa: (2007 to 2024)

The persistent challenges faced by Sub-Saharan African economies in achieving structural transformation and moving toward more sophisticated, knowledge- intensive production systems motivated this paper. This research investigated the macroeconomic determinants of economic complexity in fifteen selected Sub-Sahara African countries—Burkina Faso, Botswana, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Congo Dem. Rep., Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, and Uganda—from 2007 to 2024. Using the Panel Corrected Standard Errors, the paper examined how Gross Domestic Product per capita growth, unemployment, foreign direct investment inflows and broad money supply influence economic complexity. The empirical findings revealed that gross domestic product per capita growth has a negative (–0.0021) and insignificant (p = 0.548) effect on economic complexity. Unemployment has a negative (–0.0177) effect that is highly significant (p = 0.000) on economic complexity, indicating that unemployment significantly reduces the economy's complexity. Foreign direct investment showed a negative (–4.40e-11) and insignificant (p = 0.062) effect on economic complexity. Also, the outcomes revealed that broad money had a negative (–0.0077) and significant (p = 0.000) effect on economic complexity in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study concludes that the influence of macroeconomic variables on economic complexity is not only strong but also highly conditional within Sub- Saharan Africa. The study recommends that the goal of lowering unemployment should be the top priority of the region's policymakers as the number one macroeconomic objective. It entails active labour market measures, such as investing in technical and vocational education and training that is relevant to the emerging sectors; incentives for firms to create jobs requiring higher skills; and the elimination of structural barriers that prevent large portions of the workforce from escaping informality and underemployment, to unleash human potential needed to value-add the complex production of goods and services.