Commodity Dependence and Trade Variables of Selected Sub-Saharan Countries

The study used annual balanced panel data from 2000 to 2020 that was obtained from world bank (World Development Indicators, 2022). These include: terms of trade (TOT), exchange rate (XRATE) and balance of trade (BOT), export value of the dependent commodity of country, total export value of country and trade openness. Data of control variables (gross capitation formation (GCF) and population growth (POPGT)) were also collected from WDI. Data for agricultural commodity prices, global oil prices (GOP) and mineral and metal ore prices are obtained from World Bank commodity price data portal. The commodity dependency index of country i at time i was computed as the as the ratio of export value of the dependent commodity to the total export value of the country. Due the challenge of obtaining the consistent data, 31 sub-Saharan countries were considered in the study. Specifically, 11 agricultural commodity dependent countries, 6 energy commodity dependent countries and 14 mineral and metal ore dependent countries were selected. Appendix Table 1 provide a list of these countries.