The gravity model,African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and US trade relations with sub-Saharan Africa

The United States of America enacted the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in 2000 to grant sub-Saharan African countries (SSA) a preferential treatment in their exports to the USA. With this Act, most of the exports from SSA can now enter the USA duty-free, and this is expected to boost the exporting and manufacturing sectors in SSA. Hopefully, this singular act of assistance from the USA will spur entrepreneurship in SSA, thereby creating jobs and jump starting meaningful economic growth in the region. Since trade is a major catalyst in economic development, AGOA is arguably the most meaningful intervention from a developed country to an under-developed region such as SSA in recent times. Has AGOA had any impact on US trade with SSA? This paper sheds some light on this issue by examining the flow and composition of trade between the USA and AGOA countries. The analysis uses trade data (US imports) for 36 countries over 12 years. Empirical estimations based on the gravity model show that receiving AGOA status has a strong positive and significant impact on overall trade with the US. Interestingly, however, the analysis also shows a disproportionate impact of crude oil imports from the oil-producing countries of Angola, Gabon, and Nigeria, which is clearly not the intent of the Act.     

Aid for trade and export diversification in recipient‐countries

The Aid‐for‐Trade (AfT) Initiative was launched by the Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with a view to helping developing countries and the least‐developed countries (LDCs) expand their trade. The current paper contributes to the literature on AfT effectiveness by examining how AfT affects recipient‐countries' export product diversification. The analysis has been carried out on a sample of 104 AfT recipient‐countries over the period 2002–2015 and uses the two‐step system generalised methods of moments (GMM) approach. Results show that AfT flows are conducive to export product diversification in recipient‐countries. In addition, the analysis has shown a positive impact of the cumulative AfT flows on the export product diversification path of these countries. These results apply as well to the subsamples of LDCs and other developing countries. One policy implication of these results is that a scale‐up of AfT would help recipient‐countries to diversify their export products baskets and hence facilitate their greater integration into the global trading system.     

Coping with the crisis and export diversification

Using a highly disaggregated firm–product–destination level data from Denmark, we analyse how Danish exporters responded to the global recession in 2008–09 and the recovery that followed. We show that firms reacted mainly by adjusting their scale of export shipments and by extending their export portfolio outside of their core products and markets. More importantly, we also find that export diversification into fast-growing economies like China was associated with better export growth performance. Hence, trade reorientation beyond traditional market destinations accelerated export growth and as such constitutes an important mechanism for understanding the various determinants of firm heterogeneity.     

The conflicting impacts of export fluctuations and diversification programmes

Abstract

While analyses of export instability and diversification policies typically focus on aggregate earnings, a conflict can arise between income instability at the aggregate and household levels. Diversification can reduce a country's aggregate income instability and simultaneously increase the instability experienced by many households, and perhaps by every household in the country. We demonstrate how alternative export portfolios can produce this conflict in instability. The conflict means that the conclusions from previous empirical studies need to be qualified and policy recommendations need to be carefully formulated.     

Export diversification,specialisation and inequality: Evidence from Asian and Western countries

This paper examines the dynamic effect of globalization at the disaggregated level of sectoral export diversification and manufacturing specialization on income inequality using a panel data set of 52 Asian and Western countries from 1988 to 2014. The paper uses dynamic panel data models applying the System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimations that provide more accurate and better results than those obtained with static panel data models. The results suggest that there is no statistically significant relationship between manufacturing specialization and inequality while sectoral export diversification has been the driving force of inequality. For sub-groups of countries, higher sectoral export diversification increases inequality and higher manufacturing specialization decreases inequality in high-income Asian countries and European Union (EU) member states. Moreover, the study finds insignificant effects in low-income Asian countries and Anglo-Saxon countries.     

Geographic export diversification: Determinants and their link with export performance

This study examines company‐specific factors that may help explain the choice of an export‐market strategy and explores how the selected export strategy contributes to explaining company's export performance (XP). Concentrating on a specific area within a broad spectrum of export behavior analysis has enabled us to examine these factors in greater depth. The results of our research, which was carried out using a sample comprising Spanish exporting companies, show a firm's size, a firm's age, and a firm's greater foreign ownership in its share capital are all determining factors for adopting a strategy geared to export‐market diversification. A greater level of investment in R&D and greater international commitment are also important in this regard. We suggest reinforcing these two factors because there is evidence of a better XP among firms that have a wider range of foreign markets.     

The effects of cross-regional free trade agreements under a vertical industry structure

This paper examines the effects of a cross-regional free trade agreement (FTA) on tariffs, welfare, and the incentives for multilateral free trade in a three-country model with a vertical industry structure. We show that the FTA induces member countries to reduce their tariffs on nonmember countries. On the other hand, a nonmember country lowers its tariff on final-good imports, but raises its tariff on intermediate-good imports. Also, the FTA makes member and nonmember countries better off. After the FTA is enacted, member and nonmember countries have an incentive to support multilateral free trade, so an FTA acts as a building block for multilateral trade liberalization.     

The potential of African trade integration – Panel data evidence for the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite

ABSTRACT

The COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite FTA, formed in 2011, is supposed to be a milestone towards Africa's continental trade integration. This study analyzes the impact of regional integration among the Tripartite countries on their bilateral imports before that date to evaluate the latest integration efforts. We estimate an extended gravity model on a large panel of 51 African countries using yearly observations from 1995 to 2010. We proxy existing formal trade barriers by sample average tariff data on imports from the world as well as indicator variables for the membership in regional FTAs. We consider different estimation techniques and discuss distinct sets of fixed effects. The PPML regression results indicate that remaining tariffs are significantly negatively correlated with imports throughout the preferred multiplicative models. An FTA status does not show a clear-cut import enhancing effect. In the specifications that control for country-year effects, the EAC coefficient is positively correlated with imports, and the COMESA and SADC FTA membership show a positive relation to imports within some reduced-sample robustness checks.     

Supplementary Trade Benefits of Multi-Memberships in African Regional Trade Agreements

ABSTRACT

Few papers have investigated the trade effects of multi-memberships of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs), but none has done this in an Africa-wide manner. This paper investigates the supplementary trade effects of multi-memberships of RTAs after controlling for single-membership for all African RTAs. We use (1) overall number of RTAs by country pair; (2) dummies of number of RTAs; and (3) number of RTA memberships by countries within each RTA grouping, in a panel of 53 African countries from 1995 to 2014. The gravity models are estimated with the Eicker-White robust covariance Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) which is superior to previous ones. All the estimates concur that multi-memberships have significant additional intra-Africa trade benefits which increase with the number of memberships. The implication is that although RTAs enhance trade in Africa, it is only a second-best to a complete integration of the African continent. A complete dismantling of politically induced trade barriers and even inter-RTA boundaries within Africa will yield significant intra-Africa trade benefits. The results support the ongoing efforts in Africa in pursuing a “one Africa” vision. Such efforts have to transcend regional integration and pursue the ideal of an integrated Africa for the full trade benefits to be realized.     

The African Growth and Opportunity Act and growth in sub‐Saharan Africa: A local projection approach

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is intended to increase exports and economic growth in sub‐Saharan Africa by providing trade preferences to eligible countries. While previous research has generally found a positive relationship between AGOA and exports, no previous research has investigated the relationship between AGOA and economic growth. We explore the dynamic relationship between AGOA and economic growth in sub‐Saharan Africa by applying the local projection method (American Economic Review, 95, 2005 and 161) to estimate impulse responses. We find that a country's becoming eligible for AGOA preferences is associated with higher growth rates in the future, but that this effect may not be immediate, highlighting the importance of exploring the dynamic relationship between AGOA and growth.     

The impact of domestic diversification and top management teams on the international diversification of Chinese firms

Despite increasing research on outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by firms from emerging economies, our understanding of the relationship between domestic operations and international diversification of these firms is still limited. Using a unique dataset of Chinese listed firms, we examine the impact of domestic diversification on their international diversification. We find that international diversification is positively affected by firms’ domestic industrial and domestic regional diversification. We also find that top management team (TMT)’s previous international experience strengthens the impact of domestic diversification on firms’ international diversification, whereas TMT's prior political connections weakens the impact of domestic diversification on international diversification.     

Free trade agreement and transport service trade

This study investigates the effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) on trade in transport services using OECD data from 2003 to 2006. Our analysis found that FTAs had a positive overall impact on transport services for multiple countries (i.e., 26 home and 56 partner countries). The resulting positive overall impact assures that, even with the challenges associated with different layers of services and the obstacles formed by generally low trade openness in the sector, the provisions in FTAs (e.g., national treatment and market access for goods and services) promote transport service trades. Our findings suggest that the provisions in FTAs encourage economic agents to increase engagement in transport services because of expanded openness of the physical movement of goods across international borders.     

Real exchange rate (RER) as a policy tool for industrial diversification and growth in Africa

Appropriate exchange rate (ER) policies in some Asian and Latin American countries have led to improvement in industrial diversification and growth. The growth ‘miracle’ of the Asian countries centres on the effective use of ER and trade policies, specifically the adoption of depreciation of real exchange rate (RER). However, the case of Africa is different, as the continent is yet to adopt an appropriate ER policy that enhances industrial diversification and growth. Examining the effectiveness of the RER as a policy tool for industrial diversification and growth in 36 African countries, this study applied a dynamic generalised method of moments (GMM) estimation technique to determine how changes in RER affects the growth composition of the three main productive sectors – primary, secondary, and tertiary and their response rates. Our findings suggest that the primary sector leads to appreciation of the RER, while the secondary and tertiary lead to depreciation of the RER. This result has serious policy implication for the Africa continent that has relied so much on the production of primary commodities. Rather than pursue the policy of ER depreciation which affects the primary and secondary sectors, policy shift in favour of the tertiary sector should be highly encouraged.     

Overlapping free trade agreements and international trade: A network approach

In our work, we have analysed the effect of the hub‐and‐spoke nature of free trade agreements (FTA s) on trade. Contrary to previous analyses, we have considered the effects of the country's position in the FTA network on the bilateral trade of the hub country. We have conducted an in‐depth analysis of the global network of FTA s, focusing particularly on its evolution in the last 15 years. We have utilised a panel data set covering the period 1960–2010 to investigate the effects of the hub‐and‐spoke on trade. Our results show that the countries that are more connected to FTA s export more than those that are less involved, although not all the partner countries you can connect with are the same. An increase in the number of spokes that have no link between them has, on average, a negative effect on the trade of the hub, which indicates that signing FTA s with every country is not the optimal strategy for increasing trade. However, if we consider the way new FTA s change the relative position of a country, we can see that if new FTA s make the country more central or less constrained in the network, these new agreements have a strongly positive and significant pro‐trade effect.     

The link between product diversification and performance among Spanish manufacturing firms: Analyzing the role of firm size

This study sheds additional light on the product diversification‐performance relationship for firms in a country having recently attained an advanced economy status in our period of analysis. We assume there will be an inverted U‐shaped relationship and use a sample of small, medium, and large Spanish manufacturing firms between 1994 and 2008. Our findings provide solid support for this assumption, and are identical when the sample consists of small, medium, and large firms and of large firms alone. Our results also suggest that the larger the firm, the higher the optimal level of diversification. Panel data models are used to control for unobservable heterogeneity and potential endogeneity problems. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessing the impact of unilateral trade policies EBA and AGOA on African beneficiaries' exports using matching econometrics

The existing literature studying the impact of non‐reciprocal preferential trade agreements (NRPTAs) assumes implicitly NRPTAs are non‐randomly assigned without showing the evidence of that. Using a matching methodology, this paper investigates whether the “African Growth and Opportunity Act” (AGOA) and the “Everything But Arms” (EBA) unilateral trade concessions have had an impact, and in what magnitude, on the exports of African beneficiary countries in the light of the evidence of the non‐random nature (endogeneity) of NRPTAs. Methodologically, previous studies using the matching procedure focused on bi or multilateral trade agreements. Our work focuses on NRPTAs that depend only on donors' conditions. Accordingly, we show that for NRPTAs, gravity covariates cannot be used for the matching procedure. We propose to use political variables as determinants for obtaining non‐reciprocal trade preferences in order to address the endogenous nature of NRPTA assignment. Our main results confirm that a country becomes eligible for a NRPTA only when it meets certain conditions, defined by their donors, such as political stability and economic regulation (for AGOA), and freedom of expression and human development (for EBA). Results also show that both AGOA and EBA policies have had a positive impact on African beneficiary countries' exports to NRPTA's providers, even if the magnitude impact of EBA is significantly lower than that of AGOA.     

中印给非洲经济增长带来契机

<正>世界银行9月17日发布最新报告指出,中国和印度这两个新兴亚洲经济大国近年来在非洲的贸易和投资大幅度增加,可望为非洲的经济增长和创造就业带来巨大的潜力。该报告收集了关于中国和印度企业在非洲经营情况的新证据,发现非洲出口额的27％是面向亚洲,为1990年的3倍。目前非洲对亚洲的出口水平与对传统贸易伙伴美国和欧盟的水平基本相同。与此同时,亚洲对非洲的出口增长速度保持在每年18％,超过对世界其他地区     

澳大利亚对华反倾销法律政策演变和最新发展

自1996年以来,澳大利亚对华反倾销法律政策不断调整?最初澳大利亚认为中国是“非市场经济国家”．后承认中国为“转型经济国家”。判断转型经济国家的正常价值标准由“价格控制”测试变为“市场条件主导”测试。由于澳大利亚海关法作了最新修正,且中澳正在进行双边自由贸易区谈判,澳大利亚目前正处在是否承认中国完全市场经济地位的分水岭时期。     

CUSFTA effects: A joint consideration of trade and multinational activities

This paper estimates the effects of the Canada–US Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) on trade, sales of foreign affiliates of multinational enterprises, and total bilateral commerce (aggregate of both trade ands sales of foreign affiliates) in the manufacturing sector. The empirical investigation is carried out over a panel dataset covering the US bilateral transactions with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries for the period 1983–1998. The empirical specification is guided by a gravity-based model that accounts for trade and the operation of foreign affiliates as alternative modes of accessing foreign markets. The results show that the CUSFTA induced an increase in inward and outward trade between the US and Canada, but also led to a significant reduction in sales of their foreign affiliates in the corresponding CUSFTA partner country. This outcome implies that the trade-generating effect of the CUSFTA is overstated.     

The impact of geographic diversification on export performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)

Two alternative diversification strategies—the geographic diversification of export sales and key market concentration—are extensively discussed in management, strategy, entrepreneurship, and economics literature. However, no conclusive evidence currently exists as to how either of these strategies affects the performance of international sales. This paper contributes to a better understanding of geographic diversification as a key dimension of the internationalization process for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In it, we analyze a comprehensive database of Polish exporters over a 3-year period to better understand the geographic diversification patterns of exporters. Based on this analysis, six propositions emerged from the export patterns examined and two viable strategies for exporting SMEs are identified: (1) concentrating on a single market and (2) a balanced approach aimed at targeting a small number of key markets, combined with a strategy of penetrating other markets. Implications for practice and future research are also discussed herein.