IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jafrec/v21y2012i2p228-265.html

Economic Integration and the Two Margins of Trade: The Impact of the Barcelona Process on North African Countries' Exports

Author

Listed:
  • Sami Bensassi
  • Laura Márquez-Ramos
  • Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso

Abstract

According to recently developed models of trade based on imperfect competition and heterogeneous firms, lower trade costs increase bilateral trade, not only through a rise in the mean value of individual shipments (the intensive margin of trade), but also through an increase in the number of exporting firms (the extensive margin of trade). The main aim of this paper is to provide new empirical evidence on the effects of the Euro-Mediterranean (EuroMed) agreements on both margins of trade. Using highly disaggregated export data for four North African countries (Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia) over the 1995–2008 period, we estimate the impact of the EuroMed agreements on both trade margins, thus providing empirical evidence about the validity of theoretical predictions. Our results show that North African countries enjoyed significant positive returns from the Barcelona Process, through increased exports of manufactured products to the four most populated continental countries in the European Union. Copyright 2012 , Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Sami Bensassi & Laura Márquez-Ramos & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso, 2012. "Economic Integration and the Two Margins of Trade: The Impact of the Barcelona Process on North African Countries' Exports," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 21(2), pages 228-265, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:21:y:2012:i:2:p:228-265
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jae/ejr038
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Parra, María Dolores & Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada, 2015. "Imported inputs and Egyptian exports: Exploring the links," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 9, pages 1-31.
    2. Persson, Maria, 2012. "From trade preferences to trade facilitation: Taking stock of the issues," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 6, pages 1-33.
    3. Adriana Cardozo & Inmaculada Martínez‐Zarzoso & Paula L. Vogler, 2022. "The impact of free trade agreements on Middle East and North Africa exports of intermediate and final goods," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(5), pages 1501-1527, May.
    4. Luis Marcelo Florensa & Laura Márquez-Ramos & María Luisa Recalde & María Victoria Barone, 2014. "Does economic integration increase trade margins? Empirical evidence from LAIAs countries," Working Papers 2014/05, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    5. Bourdet, Yves & Persson, Maria, 2011. "Reaping the Benefits of Deeper Euro-Med Integration Through Trade Facilitation," Working Papers 2011:15, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    6. Ofei, Edmund Okraku, 2017. "Impact of PTA on Trade Margins of LDCs in Sub- Saharan Africa: Evidence from the EBA," MPRA Paper 86976, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Laura Marquez-Ramos, 2016. "The Role of Institutional Environment in International Trade. The Case of Spanish Regions," REGION, European Regional Science Association, vol. 3, pages 125-140.
    8. Luis Florensa & Laura Márquez-Ramos & María Recalde, 2015. "The effect of economic integration and institutional quality of trade agreements on trade margins: evidence for Latin America," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 151(2), pages 329-351, May.
    9. Claudio Candia Campano & Medardo Aguirre Gonz�lez & Lilliam Ant�n L�pez & Javier Beltr�n Valdebenito, 2018. "A gravity model of trade for Nicaraguan agricultural exports," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, vol. 37(74), pages 391-428.
    10. Mathilde Maurel & Hugo Lapeyronie & Bogdan Meunier, 2016. "Impact of hard and soft infrastructure: Evidence from the EU partners, North Africa and CEECs," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01396058, HAL.
    11. Leila Baghdadi & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Celestino Suárez-Burguet & Habib Zitouna, 2012. "Is the road to regional integration paved with pollution convergence?," Working Papers 2012/03, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    12. Claudio Candia Campano & Medardo Aguirre Gonz�lez & Lilliam Ant�n L�pez & Javier Beltr�n Valdebenito, 2018. "A gravity model of trade for Nicaraguan agricultural exports," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, vol. 37(74), pages 391-428.
    13. Serranito, Francisco, 2013. "Heterogeneous technology and the technological catching-up hypothesis: Theory and assessment in the case of MENA countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 685-697.
    14. Hicham El Ouazzani & Hicham Ouakil & Abdelhamid Moustabchir & Augustin Foster Chabossou, 2025. "Economic impact of the african continental free trade area: a combined propensity score matching and difference-in-differences approach to regional integration in Africa," International Journal of Economic Policy Studies, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 377-399, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General

    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:oup:jafrec:v:21:y:2012:i:2:p:228-265. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csaoxuk.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.