IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2005-036.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regional Trade Arrangements in Africa: Past Performance and the Way Forward

Author

Listed:
  • Yongzheng Yang
  • Mr. Sanjeev Gupta

Abstract

Regional trade arrangements (RTAs) in Africa have been ineffective in promoting trade and foreign direct investment. Relatively high external trade barriers and low resource complementarity between member countries limit both intra- and extraregional trade. Small market size, poor transport facilities and high trading costs make it difficult for African countries to reap the potential benefits of RTAs. To increase regional trade and investment, African countries need to undertake more broad-based liberalization and streamline existing RTAs, supported by improvements in infrastructure and trade facilitation. Early action to strengthen the domestic revenue base would help address concerns over revenue losses from trade liberalization.

Suggested Citation

  • Yongzheng Yang & Mr. Sanjeev Gupta, 2005. "Regional Trade Arrangements in Africa: Past Performance and the Way Forward," IMF Working Papers 2005/036, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2005/036
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=17971
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. By Gunnar Jonsson & Arvind Subramanian, 2001. "Dynamic Gains from Trade: Evidence from South Africa," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 48(1), pages 1-8.
    2. Keen, Michael & Ligthart, Jenny E., 2002. "Coordinating tariff reduction and domestic tax reform," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 489-507, March.
    3. Anne O. Krueger, 1993. "Free Trade Agreements as Protectionist Devices: Rules of Origin," NBER Working Papers 4352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Arvind Panagariya, 2004. "Miracles and Debacles: In Defence of Trade Openness," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(8), pages 1149-1171, August.
    5. Agbeyegbe, Terence D. & Stotsky, Janet & WoldeMariam, Asegedech, 2006. "Trade liberalization, exchange rate changes, and tax revenue in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 261-284, April.
    6. Drysdale, Peter & Garnaut, Ross, 1982. "Trade Intensities and the Analysis of Bilateral Trade Flows in a Many-Country World : A Survey," Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 22(2), pages 62-84, February.
    7. Kimberly A. Clausing, 2001. "Trade creation and trade diversion in the Canada - United States Free Trade Agreement," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 34(3), pages 677-696, August.
    8. Jaime De Melo & Arvind Panagariya & Dani Rodrik, 2015. "The New Regionalism: A Country Perspective," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Developing Countries in the World Economy, chapter 14, pages 323-357, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Taye Mengistae & Catherine Pattillo, 2004. "Export Orientation and Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 51(2), pages 1-6.
    10. Kala Krishna & Anne Krueger, 1995. "Implementing Free Trade Areas: Rules of Origin and Hidden Protection," NBER Working Papers 4983, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Foroutan, Faezeh & Pritchett, Lant, 1993. "Intra-sub-Saharan African Trade: Is It Too Little?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 2(1), pages 74-105, May.
    12. Lawrence E. Hinkle & Maurice Schiff, 2004. "Economic Partnership Agreements Between Sub‐Saharan Africa and the EU: A Development Perspective," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(9), pages 1321-1333, September.
    13. Schiff, Maurice & Winters, L Alan, 1998. "Regional Integration as Diplomacy," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 12(2), pages 271-295, May.
    14. Robert E. Baldwin, 2004. "Openness and Growth: What's the Empirical Relationship?," NBER Chapters, in: Challenges to Globalization: Analyzing the Economics, pages 499-521, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Baldwin, Richard E. & Venables, Anthony J., 1995. "Regional economic integration," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 31, pages 1597-1644, Elsevier.
    16. Mr. Athanasios Vamvakidis, 1998. "Regional Trade Agreements Versus Broad Liberalization: Which Path Leads to Faster Growth? Time-Series Evidence," IMF Working Papers 1998/040, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Baunsgaard, Thomas & Keen, Michael, 2010. "Tax revenue and (or?) trade liberalization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 563-577, October.
    18. Ademola Oyejide, T., 1997. "Regional Integration and Trade Liberalization in Sub-Saharan Africa," Papers 28s, African Economic Research Consortium.
    19. Céline CARRERE, 2003. "African Regional Agreements: Their Impact on Trade With or Without Currency Unions," Working Papers 200311, CERDI.
    20. Anne O. Krueger, 1999. "Trade Creation and Trade Diversion Under NAFTA," NBER Working Papers 7429, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Arvind Panagariya, 2002. "EU Preferential Trade Arrangements and Developing Countries," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(10), pages 1415-1432, November.
    22. Arvind Panagariya, 2000. "Preferential Trade Liberalization: The Traditional Theory and New Developments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 287-331, June.
    23. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Warner, 1995. "Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 1-118.
    24. David Dollar & Aart Kraay, 2004. "Trade, Growth, and Poverty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(493), pages 22-49, February.
    25. Coe, David T & Hoffmaister, Alexander W, 1999. "North-South Trade: Is Africa Unusual?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 8(2), pages 228-256, July.
    26. Arvind Subramanian & Natalia T. Tamirisa, 2003. "Is Africa Integrated in the Global Economy?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 50(3), pages 1-2.
    27. Padamja Khandelwal, 2004. "Comesa and Sadc: Prospects and Challenges for Regional Trade Integration," IMF Working Papers 2004/227, International Monetary Fund.
    28. Arvind Panagariya & Jagdish Bhagwati, 1996. "The Economics of Preferential Trade Agreements," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 51856, September.
    29. Przemyslaw Kowalski, 2005. "Impact of Changes in Tariffs on Developing Countries' Government Revenue," OECD Trade Policy Papers 18, OECD Publishing.
    30. Francis Ng & Alexander J. Yetes, 2001. "The Recent Trade Performance Of Sub-Saharan African Countries : Cause for Hope or More of the Same?," World Bank Publications - Reports 9824, The World Bank Group.
    31. Maurice Schiff & L. Alan Winters, 2003. "Regional Integration and Development," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15172.
    32. Mr. Reint Gropp & Mr. Liam P. Ebrill & Ms. Janet Gale Stotsky, 1999. "Revenue Implications of Trade Liberalization," IMF Occasional Papers 1999/007, International Monetary Fund.
    33. Mr. Andrew Berg & Anne O. Krueger, 2003. "Trade, Growth, and Poverty: A Selective Survey," IMF Working Papers 2003/030, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Burfisher, Mary E. & Robinson, Sherman & Thierfelder, Karen, 2004. "Regionalism," MTID discussion papers 65, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Anna Maria Mayda & Chad Steinberg, 2009. "Do South-South trade agreements increase trade? Commodity-level evidence from COMESA," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1361-1389, November.
    3. Thierry Verdier, 2010. "Regional Integration, Fragility and Institution Building: An Analytical Framework Applied to the African Context," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 38, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    4. M. Ayhan Kose & Guy M. Meredith & Christopher M. Towe, 2005. "How Has NAFTA Affected the Mexican Economy? Review and Evidence," Springer Books, in: Rolf J. Langhammer & Lúcio Vinhas Souza (ed.), Monetary Policy and Macroeconomic Stabilization in Latin America, pages 35-81, Springer.
    5. Hans Weisfeld & Ms. Manuela Goretti, 2008. "Trade in the WAEMU: Developments and Reform Opportunities," IMF Working Papers 2008/068, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Anna Maria Mayda & Chad Steinberg, 2009. "Do South‐South trade agreements increase trade? Commodity‐level evidence from COMESA," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(4), pages 1361-1389, November.
    7. Jean-François Brun & Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2019. "Tax reform, public revenue and public revenue instability in developing countries: Does development aid matter?," CERDI Working papers halshs-02089734, HAL.
    8. Anna Maria Mayda & Mr. Chad Steinberg, 2007. "Do South-South Trade Agreements Increase Trade? Commodity-Level Evidence from COMESA," IMF Working Papers 2007/040, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Jean-François Brun & Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2019. "Tax reform, public revenue and public revenue instability in developing countries: Does development aid matter?," Working Papers halshs-02089734, HAL.
    10. Tarlok Singh, 2010. "Does International Trade Cause Economic Growth? A Survey," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(11), pages 1517-1564, November.
    11. Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2017. "Export Upgrading and the Extent of Structural Change in Tax Revenue in Developing Countries," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 6(1), pages 27-58, June.
    12. Kose, M. Ayhan & Prasad, Eswar S. & Terrones, Marco E., 2006. "How do trade and financial integration affect the relationship between growth and volatility?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 176-202, June.
    13. Robinson, Sherman & Thierfelder, Karen, 2002. "Trade liberalisation and regional integration: the search for large numbers," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 46(4), pages 1-20.
    14. Rao, B. Bhaskara & Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya, 2011. "Globalization and growth in the low income African countries with the extreme bounds analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 795-805, May.
    15. Walkenhorst, Peter, 2005. "Trade Policy Developments in Tanzania: The Challenge of Global and Regional Integration," MPRA Paper 23399, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Niclas Berggren & Henrik Jordahl, 2005. "Does free trade really reduce growth? Further testing using the economic freedom index," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 99-114, January.
    17. Sena Kimm Gnangnon & Jean-François Brun, 2018. "Impact of Multilateral Trade Liberalization on Resource Revenue," Economies, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-19, November.
    18. Clarete, Ramon & Edmonds, Christopher & Wallack, Jessica Seddon, 2003. "Asian regionalism and its effects on trade in the 1980s and 1990s," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 91-129, February.
    19. Mr. Azim M Sadikov & Mr. Hans P Lankes & Mr. Dustin Smith & Ms. Katrin Elborgh-Woytek & Mr. Jean-Jacques Hallaert, 2006. "Fiscal Implications of Multilateral Tariff Cuts," IMF Working Papers 2006/203, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Kym Anderson, 2005. "On the Virtues of Multilateral Trade Negotiations," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(255), pages 414-438, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2005/036. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.