IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/84255.html

Assessing Ghana’s trade under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)

Author

Listed:
  • Adagblenya, Barbara Dzidzornu

Abstract

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) represents a unilateral trade preference between the United States and eligible countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This trade pact, framed under the Generalized System of Preferences of the WTO extends duty-free and quota-free market access to qualified countries. This study seeks to examine the effects of the trade pact on US-Ghana trade. Specifically, it seeks to analyse significant trends in Ghana’s exports to the United States after the enactment of the AGOA Act in 2000. Using primary data obtained through surveys from relevant Ghana government agencies and secondary data from trade organisations including the AGOA website, US Trade department etc. the study analysed and described the effects of the AGOA trade agreement. Results of the study indicated that inherent structural constraints facing Ghanaian exporters, together with limited productive capacities negatively affected the utility of the trade agreement. This limitation reduces significantly the ability of AGOA to influence and reduce poverty as well as positively contribute to growth. The study further noted that uncertainties surrounding expiration of some sections of the agreement hampers long term planning and investments by stakeholders. The writer recommends an aggressive push towards improving exporter capacities, through stakeholder engagement to address challenges inhibiting effective utilization of AGOA trade preferences. This should include investment in productive capacities in order to expand product lines to benefit from existing preferences. Progressive attempts must also focus on sensitizing exporters on US trade rules as well as international trade practices.

Suggested Citation

  • Adagblenya, Barbara Dzidzornu, 2017. "Assessing Ghana’s trade under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)," MPRA Paper 84255, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:84255
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/84255/1/MPRA_paper_84255.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brenton, Paul & Hoppe, Mombert, 2006. "The African Growth and Opportunity Act, exports, and development in Sub-Saharan Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3996, The World Bank.
    2. Nouve, Kofi & Staatz, John M., 2003. "Has Agoa Increased Agricultural Exports From Sub-Saharan Africa To The United States?," Staff Paper Series 11573, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Elena Ianchovichina & Aaditya Mattoo & Marcelo Olarreaga, 2001. "Unrestricted Market Access for Sub‐Saharan Africa: How Much Is It Worth and Who Pays?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 10(4), pages 410-432.
    6. Farhang Niroomand & Edward Nissan, 1997. "An inquiry into openness in international trade," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 24(3), pages 167-178, September.
    7. Joseph Francois & Bernard Hoekman & Miriam Manchin, 2006. "Preference Erosion and Multilateral Trade Liberalization," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 20(2), pages 197-216.
    8. Çaglar Özden & Gunjan Sharma, 2006. "Price Effects of Preferential Market Access: Caribbean Basin Initiative and the Apparel Sector," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 20(2), pages 241-259.
    9. Yongzheng Yang & Mr. Alvin Hilaire, 2003. "The United States and the New Regionalism/ Bilateralism," IMF Working Papers 2003/206, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Edward D. Mansfield & Helen V. Milner & B. Peter Rosendorff, 2015. "Free to Trade: Democracies, Autocracies, and International Trade," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Edward D Mansfield (ed.), THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE, chapter 7, pages 127-143, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. 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.
    12. Aaditya Mattoo & Devesh Roy & Arvind Subramanian, 2003. "The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act and its Rules of Origin: Generosity Undermined?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(6), pages 829-851, June.
    13. Marcelo Olarreaga & Çaglar Özden, 2005. "AGOA and Apparel: Who Captures the Tariff Rent in the Presence of Preferential Market Access?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 63-77, January.
    14. repec:qeh:qehwps:qehwps109 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Bernard Hoekman & Çağlar Özden (ed.), 2006. "Trade Preferences and Differential Treatment of Developing Countries," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3320.
    16. Chomo, Grace V., 2002. "Free Trade Agreements Between Developing and Industrialized Countries: Comparing the U.S.-Jordan FTA with Mexico's Experience Under NAFTA," Working Papers 15868, United States International Trade Commission, Office of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Zenebe, Addisalem & Peterson, Wesley & Wamisho, Kassu, 2014. "The Impact of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA): An Empirical Analysis of Sub-Saharan African Agricultural Exports," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170590, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Cooke, Edgar F. A., 2012. "Is the impact of AGOA heterogeneous?," MPRA Paper 43277, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. 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.
    4. Cooke, Edgar F A, 2011. "The impact of trade preferences on exports of developing countries: the case of the AGOA and CBI preferences of the USA," MPRA Paper 31439, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Lawrence Edwards & Robert Z. Lawrence, 2014. "AGOA Rules: The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Special Fabric Provisions," NBER Chapters, in: African Successes, Volume III: Modernization and Development, pages 343-393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2025. "Effect of the African Growth and Opportunity Act on the Structure of Public Revenue in Sub-Saharan Africa," EconStor Preprints 309256, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    7. Xavier Cirera & Francesca Foliano & Michael Gasiorek, 2016. "The impact of preferences on developing countries’ exports to the European Union: bilateral gravity modelling at the product level," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 59-102, February.
    8. Maria Cipollina & Luca Salvatici, 2022. "The Dark Matter of Bilateral Preferential Margins: An Assessment of the Effect of US Tariffs," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-16, April.
    9. Kazunobu Hayakawa, 2023. "Multiple preference regimes and rules of origin," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 159(3), pages 673-696, August.
    10. Kazunobu HAYAKAWA & Naoto JINJI & Toshiyuki MATSUURA & Taiyo YOSHIMI, 2019. "Costs of Utilizing Regional Trade Agreements," Discussion papers 19054, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    11. Hayakawa, Kazunobu & Nuttawut, Laksanapanyakul & Shiino, Kohei, 2013. "Some practical guidance for the computation of free trade agreement utilization rates," IDE Discussion Papers 438, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    12. 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.
    13. Emiliano Magrini & Pierluigi Montalbano & Silvia Nenci, 2013. "Are the EU trade preferences really effective? A Generalized Propensity Score evaluation of the Southern Mediterranean Countries' case in agriculture and fishery," Working Papers 2/13, Sapienza University of Rome, DISS.
    14. Carlos A. Primo Braga & Bernard Hoekman & Will Martin, 2009. "Trade Preference Erosion : Measurement and Policy Response," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 9437, April.
    15. Kazunobu Hayakawa & Nuttawut Laksanapanyakul & Hiroshi Mukunoki & Shujiro Urata, 2016. "Impact of Free Trade Agreement Utilisation on Import Prices," Working Papers DP-2016-24, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).
    16. Toshiyuki Matsuura & Kazunobu Hayakawa & Nuttawut LAKSANAPANYAKUL & Yuta Watabe, 2014. "Price and Quality Changes in Outsiders of Regional Trade Agreements," Working Papers e084, Tokyo Center for Economic Research.
    17. Naoto JINJI & Kazunobu HAYAKAWA & Nuttawut LAKSANAPANYAKUL & Toshiyuki MATSUURA & Taiyo YOSHIMI, 2020. "A New Approach for Quantifying the Costs of Utilizing Regional Trade Agreements," Discussion papers e-19-010, Graduate School of Economics , Kyoto University.
    18. Khorana, Sangeeta & Caram, Santiago & Biagetti, Marco, 2021. "Developmental relevance of Everything but Arms: Implications for Bangladesh after LDC graduation," MPRA Paper 116258, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Oro Oro Ufuo & Paul Alagidede, 2020. "The impact of AGOA on Export Flows from sub-Saharan Africa: A dynamic system GMM analysis," ERSA Working Paper Series, Economic Research Southern Africa, vol. 0.
    20. Hayakawa, Kazunobu & Laksanapanyakul, Nuttawut & Yoshimi, Taiyo, 2023. "Firm-level Utilization Rates of Regional Trade Agreements: Importers’ Perspective," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:84255. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.