Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Do South-South Trade Agreements Increase Trade? Commodity-Level Evidence from COMESA

Contents:

Author Info

  • Anna Maria Mayda
  • Chad Steinberg

Abstract

South-South trade agreements are proliferating: Developing countries signed 70 new agreements between 1990 and 2003. Yet the impact of these agreements is largely unknown. This paper focuses on the static effects of South-South preferential trade agreements stemming from changes in trade patterns. Specifically, it estimates the impact of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) on Uganda's imports between 1994 and 2003. Detailed import and tariff data at the 6-digit harmonized system level are used for more than 1,000 commodities. Based on a difference-in-difference estimation strategy, the paper finds that-in contrast to evidence from aggregate statistics-COMESA's preferential tariff liberalization has not considerably increased Uganda's trade with member countries, on average across sectors. The effect, however, is heterogeneous across sectors. Finally, the paper finds no evidence of trade-diversion effects.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=19909
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by International Monetary Fund in its series IMF Working Papers with number 07/40.

as in new window
Length: 40
Date of creation: 01 Feb 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:07/40

Contact details of provider:
Postal: International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA
Phone: (202) 623-7000
Fax: (202) 623-4661
Email:
Web page: http://www.imf.org/external/pubind.htm
More information through EDIRC

Order Information:
Web: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Related research

Keywords: Developing countries; Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa; Trade models;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Coe, David T & Hoffmaister, Alexander W, 1999. "North-South Trade: Is Africa Unusual?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), vol. 8(2), pages 228-56, July.
  2. Fisman, Raymond & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2001. "Tax Rates and Tax Evasion: Evidence from 'Missing Imports' in China," CEPR Discussion Papers 3089, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  3. repec:fth:inadeb:323 is not listed on IDEAS
  4. Hiau Looi Kee & Nicita, Alessandro & Olarreaga, Marcelo, 2004. "Import demand elasticities and trade distortions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3452, The World Bank.
  5. David E. Weinstein & Christian Broda, 2004. "Globalization And The Gains From Variety," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 327, Econometric Society.
  6. Arvind Subramanian, 2000. "Trade and Trade Policies in Eastern and Southern Africa," IMF Occasional Papers 196, International Monetary Fund.
  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. 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.
  9. Christopher S. Magee, 2003. "Endogenous Preferential Trade Agreements: An Empirical Analysis," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 0(1), pages 15.
  10. Yongzheng Yang & Sanjeev Gupta, 2005. "Regional Trade Arrangements in Africa: Past Performance and the Way Forward," IMF Working Papers 05/36, International Monetary Fund.
  11. Pravin Krishna, . "Regionalism and Multilaterialism: A Political Economy Approach," Working Papers 96-5, Brown University, Department of Economics.
  12. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Ernesto Stein & Shang-Jin Wei, 1996. "Regional Trading Arrangement: Natural or Super-Natural?," NBER Working Papers 5431, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Anthony J. Venables, 2003. "Winners and losers from regional integration agreements," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(490), pages 747-761, October.
  14. Antonio Spilimbergo & Ernesto Stein, 1996. "The Welfare Implications of Trading Blocs among Countries with Different Endowments," NBER Working Papers 5472, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  15. Martin, Philippe & Mayer, Thierry & Thoenig, Mathias, 2005. "Make Trade not War?," CEPR Discussion Papers 5218, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  16. 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 (CSAE), vol. 2(1), pages 74-105, May.
  17. Lucian Cernat, 2001. "ASSESSING REGIONAL TRADE ARRANGEMENTS: ARE SOUTH–SOUTH RTAs MORE TRADE DIVERTING?," International Trade 0109001, EconWPA.
  18. Schiff, Maurice, 1997. "Small is Beautiful: Preferential Trade Agreements and the Impact of Country Size, Market Share, and Smuggling," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 12, pages 359-387.
  19. Anne O. Krueger, 1999. "Trade Creation and Trade Diversion Under NAFTA," NBER Working Papers 7429, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  20. Yeats, Alexander J, 1998. "Does Mercosur's Trade Performance Raise Concerns about the Effects of Regional Trade Arrangements?," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 12(1), pages 1-28, January.
  21. Meredith A. McIntyre, 2005. "Trade Integration in the East African Community: An Assessment for Kenya," IMF Working Papers 05/143, International Monetary Fund.
  22. Glenn W. Harrison & Thomas F. Rutherford & Ian Wooton, 1993. "An Alternative Welfare Decomposition for Customs Unions," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 26(4), pages 961-68, November.
  23. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Stein, Ernesto & Wei, Shang-Jin, 1996. "Regional Trading Arrangements," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt5hf1z4rv, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
  24. Natalia T. Tamirisa & Arvind Subramanian, 2001. "Africa's Trade Revisted," IMF Working Papers 01/33, International Monetary Fund.
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 in new window

Cited by:
  1. Jane Korinek & Mark Melatos, 2009. "Trade Impacts of Selected Regional Trade Agreements in Agriculture," OECD Trade Policy Papers 87, OECD Publishing.
  2. Mikic, Mia, 2007. "Preferential trade agreements and agricultural trade liberalization in Asia and the Pacific," MPRA Paper 2947, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  3. Demir, Firat & Dahi, Omar S., 2012. "Preferential Trade Agreements and Manufactured Goods Exports: Does It Matter Whom You PTA With?," MPRA Paper 37396, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  4. Mia Mikic, 2007. "Trends in preferential trade liberalization in Asia and the Pacific," STUDIES IN TRADE AND INVESTMENT, in: Studies in Trade and Investment - AGRICULTURAL TRADE - PLANTING THE SEEDS OF REGIONAL LIBERALIZATION IN ASIA, volume 60, pages 1-32 United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:07/40

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jim Beardow) or (Hassan Zaidi).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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