Regional integration and non-tariff barriers to Intra-Sub-Saharan Africa trade
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Date
2022
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The World Economy
Abstract
The paper assesses the ex-post trade effect of sub-regional
trade agreements (RTAs), financial integration and other
non-tariff barriers on intra-regional trade involving 43
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. The objective is to
find out if RTAs within SSA had increased trade flows to
inform current efforts of establishing a successful continental free trade area in SSA. Estimating a gravity model
augmented with measures of trade agreements and financial integration, the paper made use of bilateral trade flows
and key gravity covariates from CEPII database over the
period 1960–2015. After controlling for the endogeneity of
the trade agreement dummy, multilateral price resistance
and zero-valued trade flows, we find RTAs within SSA
and especially among Economic Community of West Afri can States and Southern Africa Development Community
members to have had a positive and significant impact on
bilateral trade. Financially integrated trading partners also
traded more, while we also found distance, landlocked-ness, common currency and colonial link to have an impact
on trade costs and bilateral trade flows within SSA. The
results indicate the need to focus on policies to expand and
integrate regional markets in SSA by removing impediments to trade and improving on trade facilitation measures
to significantly improve trade performance under the newly
established African Continental Free Trade Area.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
intra-African trade, regional integration, trade agreements, trade policy