Abstract
This study investigates the extent to which human capital investment moderates the impact of trade barriers on export performance in West Africa. Motivated by persistent export underperformance in ECOWAS despite ongoing trade liberalisation, the study integrates human capital theory, new trade Issue 2/2026 533 theory, and the augmented trade cost framework to examine the conditional nature of trade barriers. Using a balanced panel dataset of 15 ECOWAS countries over the period 2000–2023, the analysis employs a dynamic panel approach based on the two-step System Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) estimator to address endogeneity and export persistence. The results reveal that trade barriers exert a significant negative effect on export performance, while education and health investments independently enhance exports. More critically, the interaction effects indicate that human capital significantly attenuates the adverse impact of trade barriers, effectively transforming them from binding constraints into conditional frictions. Mechanism analysis further shows that this moderation operates through productivity enhancement, technology adoption, and labour resilience channels. Robustness checks confirm the stability of the findings across alternative specifications. The study contributes to the literature by introducing a disaggregated human capital moderation framework and provides policy-relevant evidence that aligning trade reforms with education and health investment is essential for achieving sustained export competitiveness in ECOWAS.