IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/worlde/v44y2021i1p234-261.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The African Growth and Opportunity Act and growth in sub‐Saharan Africa: A local projection approach

Author

Listed:
  • Nathaniel P. S. Cook
  • Jason C. Jones

Abstract

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is intended to increase exports and economic growth in sub‐Saharan Africa by providing trade preferences to eligible countries. While previous research has generally found a positive relationship between AGOA and exports, no previous research has investigated the relationship between AGOA and economic growth. We explore the dynamic relationship between AGOA and economic growth in sub‐Saharan Africa by applying the local projection method (American Economic Review, 95, 2005 and 161) to estimate impulse responses. We find that a country's becoming eligible for AGOA preferences is associated with higher growth rates in the future, but that this effect may not be immediate, highlighting the importance of exploring the dynamic relationship between AGOA and growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Nathaniel P. S. Cook & Jason C. Jones, 2021. "The African Growth and Opportunity Act and growth in sub‐Saharan Africa: A local projection approach," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 234-261, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:worlde:v:44:y:2021:i:1:p:234-261
    DOI: 10.1111/twec.12995
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.12995
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/twec.12995?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jordà, Òscar & Schularick, Moritz & Taylor, Alan M., 2015. "Betting the house," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(S1), pages 2-18.
    2. James E. Anderson & J. Peter Neary, 1996. "A New Approach to Evaluating Trade Policy," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 107-125.
    3. Carlino, Gerald A. & Inman, Robert P., 2013. "Local deficits and local jobs: Can US states stabilize their own economies?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(5), pages 517-530.
    4. Alexandra Jarotschkin & Aart Kraay, 2016. "Aid, Disbursement Delays, and the Real Exchange Rate," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(2), pages 217-238, June.
    5. Paul Collier & Anthony J. Venables, 2007. "Rethinking Trade Preferences: How Africa Can Diversify its Exports," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(8), pages 1326-1345, August.
    6. Òscar Jordà & Alan M. Taylor, 2016. "The Time for Austerity: Estimating the Average Treatment Effect of Fiscal Policy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(590), pages 219-255, February.
    7. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer, 2015. "The Next Generation of the Penn World Table," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3150-3182, October.
    8. Marilyne Huchet & Chantal Le Mouel & Mariana Vijil, 2018. "The relationship between trade openness and economic growth: Some new insights on the openness measurement issue," Post-Print hal-01883878, HAL.
    9. Irwin, Douglas A. & Tervio, Marko, 2002. "Does trade raise income?: Evidence from the twentieth century," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 1-18, October.
    10. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    11. Yanping Chong & Òscar Jordà & Alan M. Taylor, 2012. "The Harrod–Balassa–Samuelson Hypothesis: Real Exchange Rates And Their Long‐Run Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(2), pages 609-634, May.
    12. Garth Frazer & Johannes Van Biesebroeck, 2010. "Trade Growth under the African Growth and Opportunity Act," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 128-144, February.
    13. Robert G. King & Ross Levine, 1993. "Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might Be Right," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 717-737.
    14. Hoekman, Bernard & Nicita, Alessandro, 2011. "Trade Policy, Trade Costs, and Developing Country Trade," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 2069-2079.
    15. Francisco Rodríguez & Dani Rodrik, 2001. "Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic's Guide to the Cross-National Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Volume 15, pages 261-338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Marilyne Huchet†Bourdon & Chantal Le Mouël & Mariana Vijil, 2018. "The relationship between trade openness and economic growth: Some new insights on the openness measurement issue," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 59-76, January.
    17. Zakaria Sorgho & Joe Tharakan, 2019. "Assessing the impact of unilateral trade policies EBA and AGOA on African beneficiaries' exports using matching econometrics," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(10), pages 3086-3118, October.
    18. Michael T. Owyang & Valerie A. Ramey & Sarah Zubairy, 2013. "Are government spending multipliers greater during periods of slack? evidence from 20th century historical data," Working Papers 2013-004, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    19. Bouët Antoine & Laborde-Debucquet David & Dienesch Elisa & Elliott Kimberly, 2012. "The Costs and Benefits of Duty-Free, Quota-Free Market Access for Poor Countries: Who and What Matters," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-27, June.
    20. Belay Seyoum, 2007. "Export performance of developing countries under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 34(6), pages 515-533, November.
    21. Nathaniel P.S. Cook & Jason Cannon Jones, 2015. "The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and export diversification," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(7), pages 947-967, October.
    22. David H. Romer & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1999. "Does Trade Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 379-399, June.
    23. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    24. Ryan R. Brady, 2011. "Measuring the diffusion of housing prices across space and over time," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(2), pages 213-231, March.
    25. Michaely, Michael, 1977. "Exports and growth : An empirical investigation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 49-53, February.
    26. Bedassa Tadesse & Bichaka Fayissa, 2008. "The impact of African growth and opportunity act (Agoa) on U.S. imports from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(7), pages 920-941.
    27. Edwards, Sebastian, 1992. "Trade orientation, distortions and growth in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 31-57, July.
    28. Gabriel J. Felbermayr, 2005. "Dynamic Panel Data Evidence on the Trade-Income Relation," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 141(4), pages 583-611, December.
    29. Baliamoune-Lutz, Mina & Ndikumana, Léonce, 2007. "The Growth Effects of Openness to Trade and the Role of Institutions: New Evidence from African Countries," MPRA Paper 6189, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    30. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    31. Vamvakidis, Athanasios, 2002. "How Robust Is the Growth-Openness Connection? Historical Evidence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 57-80, March.
    32. Tarlok Singh, 2010. "Does International Trade Cause Economic Growth? A Survey," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(11), pages 1517-1564, November.
    33. Dal Didia & Mihai Nica & Geungu Yu, 2015. "The gravity model, African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and US trade relations with sub-Saharan Africa," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(8), pages 1130-1151, December.
    34. Greenaway, David & Morgan, Wyn & Wright, Peter, 2002. "Trade liberalisation and growth in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 229-244, February.
    35. Dollar, David, 1992. "Outward-Oriented Developing Economies Really Do Grow More Rapidly: Evidence from 95 LDCs, 1976-1985," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(3), pages 523-544, April.
    36. Michael T. Owyang & Valerie A. Ramey & Sarah Zubairy, 2013. "Are Government Spending Multipliers Greater during Periods of Slack? Evidence from Twentieth-Century Historical Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 129-134, May.
    37. 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.
    38. Judson, Ruth A. & Owen, Ann L., 1999. "Estimating dynamic panel data models: a guide for macroeconomists," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 9-15, October.
    39. Robert J. Barro, 2001. "Human Capital and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 12-17, May.
    40. Valerie Ramey & Sarah Zubairy & Michael Owyang, 2013. "Are Government Spending Multipliers State Dependent? Evidence from U.S. and Canadian Historical Data," 2013 Meeting Papers 290, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    41. David Dollar & Aart Kraay, 2004. "Trade, Growth, and Poverty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(493), pages 22-49, February.
    42. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2001. "The growth of world trade: tariffs, transport costs, and income similarity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-27, February.
    43. Sorgho, Zakaria & Tharakan, Joe, 2019. "Assessing the impact of unilateral trade policies EBA and AGOA on African beneficiaries' exports using matching econometrics," LIDAM Reprints CORE 3087, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    44. Greenaway, David & Sapsford, David, 1994. "Exports, growth, and liberalization: An evaluation," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 165-186, April.
    45. Greenaway, David & Morgan, Wyn & Wright, Peter W, 1998. "Trade Reform, Adjustment and Growth: What Does the Evidence Tell Us?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1547-1561, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Uddin, Godwin, 2021. "A critique of modern theories of trade," MPRA Paper 105194, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Mullings, Robert & Mahabir, Aruneema, 2018. "Growth by Destination: The Role of Trade in Africa’s Recent Growth Episode," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 243-261.
    2. Manwa, Farai & Wijeweera, Albert & Kortt, Michael A., 2019. "Trade and growth in SACU countries: A panel data analysis," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 107-118.
    3. Tarlok Singh, 2010. "Does International Trade Cause Economic Growth? A Survey," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(11), pages 1517-1564, November.
    4. Sumbal Fatima & Bateer Chen & Muhammad Ramzan & Qamar Abbas, 2020. "The Nexus Between Trade Openness and GDP Growth: Analyzing the Role of Human Capital Accumulation," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, November.
    5. Bajo-Rubio, Oscar & Ramos-Herrera, María del Carmen, 2023. "Does international trade promote economic growth? Europe, 19th and 20th centuries," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1358, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    6. Mariam Camarero & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann & Cecilio Tamarit, 2016. "Trade Openness and Income: A Tale of Two Regions," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(3), pages 386-408, March.
    7. Bédhat Jean-Marc Atsebi & Jean-Louis Combes & Alexandru Minea, 2019. "The trade costs of financial crises," CERDI Working papers halshs-01990335, HAL.
    8. Bretschger, Lucas, 2001. "Taking two steps to climb onto the stage: Capital taxes as link between trade and growth," Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Diskussionspapiere 05/2001, University of Greifswald, Faculty of Law and Economics.
    9. Sugata Marjit & Anwesha Basu & C. Veeramani, 2019. "Growth Gains from Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series 7905, CESifo.
    10. Muhammad Arshad Khan & Abdul Qayyum, 2007. "Trade Liberalisation, Financial Development and Economic Growth," PIDE-Working Papers 2007:19, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    11. Mr. Andrew Berg & Anne O. Krueger, 2003. "Trade, Growth, and Poverty: A Selective Survey," IMF Working Papers 2003/030, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Samargandi, Nahla & Fidrmuc, Jan & Ghosh, Sugata, 2015. "Is the Relationship Between Financial Development and Economic Growth Monotonic? Evidence from a Sample of Middle-Income Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 66-81.
    13. Lucas Bretschger, 2003. "Growth in a Globalised Economy: The Effects of Capital Taxes and Tax Competition," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 03/24, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    14. Philipp Heimberger, 2022. "Does economic globalisation promote economic growth? A meta‐analysis," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(6), pages 1690-1712, June.
    15. Dodzin, Sergei & Vamvakidis, Athanasios, 2004. "Trade and industrialization in developing economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 319-328, October.
    16. Mr. Allan D. Brunner, 2003. "The Long-Run Effects of Tradeon Income and Income Growth," IMF Working Papers 2003/037, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.
    18. 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.
    19. Sinem Pınar Gürel & Aykut Lenger, 2016. "The Nonlinear Analysis of External Dynamics on Economic Growth: The Case of Turkey," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), International Hellenic University (IHU), Kavala Campus, Greece (formerly Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology - EMaTTech), vol. 9(1), pages 57-68, April.
    20. Xuepeng Liu, 2009. "Trade and income convergence: Sorting out the causality," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 169-195.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:bla:worlde:v:44:y:2021:i:1:p:234-261. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0378-5920 .

    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.