This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

Trade Growth under the African Growth and Opportunity Act

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Garth Frazer
Johannes Van Biesebroeck

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

This paper explores whether one of the most important U.S. policies towards Africa of the past few decades achieved its desired result. In 2000, the United States dropped trade restrictions on a broad list of products through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Since the Act was applied to both countries and products, we estimate the impact with a triple difference-in-differences estimation, controlling for both country and product-level import surges at the time of onset. This approach allows us to better address the ‘endogeneity of policy’ critique of standard difference-in-differences estimation than if either a country or a product-level analysis was performed separately. Despite the fact that the AGOA product list was chosen to not include ‘import-sensitive’ products, and despite the general challenges of transaction costs in African countries, we find that AGOA has a large and robust impact on apparel imports into the U.S., as well as on the agricultural and manufactured products covered by AGOA. These import responses grew over time and were the largest in product categories where the tariffs removed were large. AGOA did not result in a decrease in exports to Europe in these product categories, suggesting that the U.S.-AGOA imports were not merely diverted from elsewhere. We discuss how the effects vary across countries and the implications of these findings for aggregate export volumes.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. 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://repec.economics.utoronto.ca/files/tecipa-289.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function: Main Text
Download Restriction: no

Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Toronto, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number tecipa-289.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: 48 pages
Date of creation: 18 Jun 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-289

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 150 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario
Phone: (416) 978-5283
Fax: (416) 978-6713

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (RePEc Maintainer).

Related research
Keywords: trade liberalization; sub-Saharan Africa; policy evaluation;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Country and Industry Studies of Trade
F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
O19 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

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.:
  1. Céline Carrère, 2004. "African Regional Agreements: Impact on Trade with or without Currency Unions," Journal of African Economies, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 199-239, June.
  2. Frankel, Jeffrey & Stein, Ernesto & Wei, Shang-jin, 1995. "Trading blocs and the Americas: The natural, the unnatural, and the super-natural," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 61-95, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Roberts, Mark J & Tybout, James R, 1997. "The Decision to Export in Colombia: An Empirical Model of Entry with Sunk Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 545-64, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 2000. "Unnatural Experiments? Estimating the Incidence of Endogenous Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(467), pages F672-94, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Bernard Hoekman & Francis Ng & Marcelo Olarreaga, 2002. "Eliminating Excessive Tariffs on Exports of Least Developed Countries," World Bank Economic Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 1-21, June.
    Other versions:
  6. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2003. "Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 170-192, March. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. John Romalis, 2005. "NAFTA's and CUSFTA's Impact on International Trade," NBER Working Papers 11059, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Keith Head & John Ries, 1997. "Market-Access Effects of Trade Liberalization: Evidence from the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement," NBER Chapters, in: The Effects of U.S. Trade Protection and Promotion Policies, pages 323-342 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  10. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2003. "Institutions, trade, and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 133-162, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Paul Collier & Jan Willem Gunning, 1999. "Explaining African Economic Performance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 64-111, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  12. Simon Roberts & John Thoburn, 2003. "Adjusting to Trade Liberalisation: The Case of Firms in the South African Textile Sector," Journal of African Economies, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 74-103, March.
  13. Brenton, Paul & Ikezuki, Takako, 2004. "The initial and potential impact of preferential access to the U.S. market under the African Growth and Opportunity Act," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3262, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  14. Dani Rodrik & Arvind Subramanian & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 131-165, 06. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  15. Mary E. Burfisher & Sherman Robinson & Karen Thierfelder, 2001. "The Impact of NAFTA on the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 125-144, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Van Biesebroeck, Johannes, 2005. "Exporting raises productivity in sub-Saharan African manufacturing firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 373-391, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Cling, Jean-Pierre & Razafindrakoto, Mireille & Roubaud, Francois, 2005. "Export processing zones in Madagascar: a success story under threat?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 785-803, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Mauro, Paolo, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Andrew K. Rose, 2004. "Do We Really Know That the WTO Increases Trade?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 98-114, March. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  20. Aaditya Mattoo & Devesh Roy & Arvind Subramanian, 2003. "The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act and its Rules of Origin: Generosity Undermined?," The World Economy, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 26(6), pages 829-851, 06. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  21. Dani Rodrik, 1998. "Trade Policy and Economic Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa," NBER Working Papers 6562, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Daniel Trefler, 2004. "The Long and Short of the Canada-U. S. Free Trade Agreement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 870-895, September. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  23. Harrison, Glenn W & Rutherford, Thomas F & Tarr, David G, 1997. "Quantifying the Uruguay Round," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(444), pages 1405-30, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  24. Wang, Zhen Kun & Winters, L Alan, 1998. "Africa's Role in Multilateral Trade Negotiations: Past and Future," Journal of African Economies, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 1-33, June.
  25. C. Milner & O. Morrissey & N. Rudaheranwa, 2000. "Policy and Non-Policy Barriers to Trade and Implicit Taxation of Exports in Uganda," The Journal of Development Studies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 67-90, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  26. Fisman, Raymond & Svensson, Jakob, 2007. "Are corruption and taxation really harmful to growth? Firm level evidence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 63-75, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  27. Limao, Nuno & Venables, Anthony J., 1999. "Infrastructure, geographical disadvantage, and transport costs," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2257, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, 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.)

  1. Oliver Morrissey, & Evious Zgovu, . "The Impact of Economic Partnership Agreements on ACP Agriculture Imports and Welfare," Discussion Papers 07/09, University of Nottingham, CREDIT. [Downloadable!]
  2. Morrissey, O. & Zgovu, E., 2008. "The Impact of Economic Partnership Agreements on African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries Imports and Welfare," 2008 International Congress, August 26-29, 2008, Ghent, Belgium 44205, European Association of Agricultural Economists. [Downloadable!]
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? There are NEP reports in over 80 fields that deliver new research to your email.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-21.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.