IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ekd/002672/3744.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why is Agricultural Trade within ECOWAS so High?

Author

Listed:
  • Abdoulaye Seck
  • Jonathan Haughton
  • Lassana Cissoko
  • Kossi Makpayo

Abstract

It is widely believed that the countries of Africa trade relatively little with the outside world, and among themselves, despite an extensive network of regional trade agreements. We examine this proposition by focusing on agricultural trade. Specifically, we ask whether non-tariff barriers (NTBs) are stunting agricultural trade within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a grouping of 15 countries in West Africa that has removed tariffs on agricultural trade among its members.We estimate a gravity model of agricultural trade, using data from 135 countries for 2000, 2003, and 2006, and employing two types of structural specification (Tobit and Heckit). To further explore the issue of NTBs, a survey of truckers was conducted in Tambacounda (Senegal) in August 2009 which found evidence of extensive bribery by police and border officials, effectively representing a barrier to trading.A robust result emerges: agricultural trade among the countries of ECOWAS is higher than one would expect. This does not mean that there are no NTBs within ECOWAS, but it does imply that any such barriers are less harmful to agricultural trade in ECOWAS than in the world as a whole. Similar effects are found for the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the South African Development Community (SADC). This suggests that African countries are not averse to agricultural trade, and local traders have been effective at exploiting trade opportunities.

Suggested Citation

  • Abdoulaye Seck & Jonathan Haughton & Lassana Cissoko & Kossi Makpayo, 2012. "Why is Agricultural Trade within ECOWAS so High?," EcoMod2012 3744, EcoMod.
    • Handle: RePEc:ekd:002672:3744
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ecomod.net/system/files/EcowasTrade2011.doc
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Adu, Raymond & Litsios, Ioannis & Baimbridge, Mark, 2022. "ECOWAS single currency: Prospective effects on trade," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    2. Kareem, Olayinka Idowu & Wieck, Christine, 2022. "Cartographie du commerce agricole au sein de la CEDEAO : structure et flux des produits agricoles, obstacles au commerce, lacunes en matière de financement et options politiques.Un projet de recherche," Working Papers 316973, Universitaet Hohenheim, Institute of Agricultural Policy and Agricultural Markets.
    3. Songfeng, Cai & Yaxiong, Zhang & Bo, Meng, 2014. "The Impact Analysis of TTIP on BRICs—based on dynamic GTAP model considering GVC," Conference papers 332528, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    4. Shahrzad Safaeimanesh & Glenn P. Jenkins, 2020. "Trade Facilitation and Its Impacts on the Economic Welfare and Sustainable Development of the ECOWAS Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-22, December.
    5. Fabien Candau & Geoffroy Guepie & Reine Kouakou, 2018. "In Gravity no Veritas: Dubious Trade Elasticiy and Weak Effects of Regional Trade Agreements in Africa," Working Papers hal-02625930, HAL.
    6. Tite Ehuitché BEKE & Dieu-Donné Melagne N’GUESSAN, 2021. "Echanges agricoles intrarégionaux et sécurité alimentaire dans l’espace CEDEAO," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 54, pages 51-81.
    7. Kareem, Olayinka Idowu & Wieck, Christine, 2022. "Mapping agricultural trade within the ECOWAS: structure and flow of agricultural products, barriers to trade, financing gaps and policy options A research project in cooperation with GIZ on behalf of ," Working Papers 316918, Universitaet Hohenheim, Institute of Agricultural Policy and Agricultural Markets.
    8. Bernard Hoekman & Dominique Njinkeu, 2017. "Integrating Africa: Some Trade Policy Research Priorities and Challenges," RSCAS Working Papers 2017/43, European University Institute.

    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:ekd:002672:3744. 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: Theresa Leary (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecomoea.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.