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Abstract
Cross-border trade in food commodities within sub-regional economic blocks in Sub-Sahara Africa
(SSA) is believed to be faster, cheaper, more convenient and welfare-enhancing than overseas trade
between SSA countries and the USA, EU or the BRIC countries. The difficulty of commodity
arbitrage across international borders in SSA is however a fundamental constraint to price
transmission, market integration and realization of the welfare-enhancing role of cross-border trade
in Africa. This study examines the impact of border and distance on price transmission between
tomato markets in Ghana and Burkina-Faso. The analysis applies a regime-switching vector error
correction model to estimate semi-weekly, wholesale prices of tomato in four tomato markets in
Ghana and a production centre in Burkina-Faso. Estimated parameters of price transmission
contain evidence of border and distance effects. This is expected since high transfer costs, including
cross-border tariffs are incurred by traders in moving tomato across the border. Moreover, the
perishable nature of tomato, and the poor quality of roads and transportation facilities may imply
additional costs of risks to arbitrageurs. The findings have both theoretical relevance and practical
implications for facilitating cross-border trade in West Africa, especially for trade between
landlocked countries like Burkina-Faso and coastal ones like Ghana.