Measures and Africa’s Exports

2000

Africa's export performance over recent decades is typically portrayed as being poor. This paper takes a new look at the record, using data on the volume rather than the value of African exports. When analysed in volume terms a quite different picture of African export performance emerges. According to UNCTAD data, between 1990-2002 the export volumes for non-oil exporters actually

Review of World Economics, 1992

• '. 1990 International Monetary Fund 0440 Thi> is. .1 'AOrkin^ paper and the auihor wi >u!<J \xclcnmc .inx comments on iht: present text Citations shuuM ictcr in ;in unpublished manuscript, mentioning the yulhoi jnd the dale >'if issuance hv the lnternditon.il Mnnef.irv fund The views cxprt'sscil jrc (hose nf ihe author jnd do nut necessarily represent those ol ihe Furid

2006

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is the flagship of US commercial and development policy with Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper looks at the impact of the trade preferences, the central element of AGOA, on African countries' exports to the US and puts them in the perspective of the development of the region. The paper finds that, while stimulating export diversification in a few countries, AGOA has fallen short of the potential impetus that preferences could otherwise provide African exporters. The impact of AGOA would be enhanced if preferences were extended to all products. This means removing tariff barriers to a range of agricultural products and to textiles and a number of other manufactured goods. There also needs to be a fundamental change in approach to the rules of origin. Given the stage of development and economic size of Sub-Saharan Africa, nonrestrictive rules of origin are crucial. For all countries in Africa, those that have and those that have not benefited from preferences, there are enormous infrastructure weaknesses and often extremely poor policy environments that raise trade costs and push African producers further away from international markets. Effective trade preferences (those with non-restrictive rules of origin) can provide a limited window of opportunity to export while these key barriers to trade are addressed. But dealing with the barriers is the priority.

2012

Some rights reserved 1 2 3 4 15 14 13 12 This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. Note that The World Bank does not necessarily own each component of the content included in the work. The World Bank therefore does not warrant that the use of the content contained in the work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. The risk of claims resulting from such infringement rests solely with you. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Nothing herein shall constitute or be considered to be a limitation upon or waiver of the privileges and immunities of The World Bank, all of which are specifically reserved.

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2016

There are differentials in the conclusion of scholars as to what undermines Africa's export flows to the European Union (EU) and United State of America (USA). While the impact of tariffs has been reduced due to the unilateral preferential tariffs granted to Africa by these countries, empirical studies have shown that the frequencies of the incidences of non-tariff measures have increased. However, most of these studies examine only price-related trade restrictions without considering the non-tariff (non-price) measures. In addition, these studies' conclusions are based on data limited to Africa south of the Sahara. This study fills these gaps by evaluating the impact of non-tariff measures in the EU and USA on African exports. The study covers exports from 25 African countries, spread across three sectors, using a gravity model based on data from 1990 to 2011, which were obtained from World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS). To mitigate the potential endogeneity and heteroscedasticity problems, the generalized method of moments was used in the analysis. This study finds that tariffs are not the cause of Africa's inability to access export markets in the EU and USA, but that the incidence of the use of non-tariff measures, such as technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, etc., have inhibited Africa's export flows to these markets, such that non-tariff barriers have larger magnitudes and significant in both markets. Résumé Les opinions des spécialistes divergent quant à ce qui pénalise les flux d'exportation de l'Afrique vers l'Union européenne (UE) et les Etats-Unis d'Amérique (USA). Bien que l'impact des barrières tarifaires ait été continuellement réduit en raison des tarifs préférentiels unilatéraux accordés à l'Afrique, les études empiriques ont montré que la prépondérance de l'incidence des obstacles non tarifaires a augmenté. Cependant, la plupart des études portaient seulement la taxe (restrictions commerciales liées) sans tenir compte des barrières non-tarifaires (hors prix). Par ailleurs, les conclusions de ces études ont été basées sur des données limitées à l'Afrique sub-saharienne. Ces lacunes ont été comblées dans cette étude en évaluant essentiellement l'impact des barrières non-tarifaires dans l'UE et aux Etats-Unis sur les exportations de l'Afrique. L'étude a porté sur les exportations de 25 pays africains couvrant trois secteurs, en utilisant un modèle de gravité sur les données de 1990 à 2011, qui ont été obtenus à partir de World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS). Pour atténuer les problèmes potentiels d'endogénéité et d'hétéroscédasticité, la méthode des moments généralisés a été utilisée dans l'analyse. Cette étude conclut que les tarifs ne sont pas la cause du faible accès de l'Afrique à ces marchés, mais les incidences de l'utilisation de barrières non tarifaires, tels que les obstacles techniques au commerce, les mesures sanitaires et phytosanitaires, etc. Les exportations de l'Afrique sont principalement handicapées vers marchés, et les barrières non tarifaires ont des effets plus importants et significatifs sur les deux marchés.

2013

Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac This publication should be cited as: Fundira, T. 2013. An analysis of Africa's export performance and export similarity for select countries within the Tripartite Free Trade Area market. Stellenbosch: tralac. This publication has been financed by The Swedish Embassy Nairobi. The Swedish Embassy Nairobi does not necessarily share the views expressed in this material. Responsibility for its contents rests entirely with the author.

Journal of African Trade, 2020

The estimation of import and export demand elasticities has a long tradition dating back to the 1950s. By the mid-1970s, the literature was sufficiently large to warrant the publication of the classic survey of the literature by . This survey was updated in the 1990s by . The literature also had become large enough to warrant designated surveys for high-income countries and regions (e.g., Sawyer and Sprinkle, 1996,1997;. Surveys of trade elasticities for developing countries in general can be found in and . The organization of surveys by region is important, as the literature now shows that trade elasticities tend to vary with the level of economic development . Of particular interest in this context is the survey of Latin American trade elasticities by . A survey of trade elasticities for a region composed primarily of developing countries, such as Africa, will therefore be more informative than usual. In the case of Africa, there has been no comprehensive survey of the literature on import and export demand elasticities for the continent. The purpose of the paper is to present a comprehensive listing of the entire literature on this subject. The resulting data clearly show that our knowledge of these elasticities is deficient in many areas. This lack of information adversely affects both future academic research and the implementation of sound economic policy. The structure of the paper is as follows. In the next section, we discuss import and export demand elasticities in an African context. Section 3 provides a brief description of the technical details involved in the estimation of import and export demand elasticities. Sections 4 and 5 present the data derived from the literature on import and export demand, respectively. The final section summarizes the literature and provides suggestions for future research. For any country or region, the more open it is to trade, the more important its trade elasticities are to policy makers. Africa as a region is an excellent example. The economies of the region are more open to trade than the global average-as measured by the ratio of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the sum of imports and exports. The region's already high trade openness is increasing over time. In 1995, exports as a share of global GDP was 21% for the world economy. In Africa, this ratio-as a standard measure of trade openness-was 27%. By 2017, the global ratio had increased to nearly 30%. In Africa, it had risen to almost a third of GDP. With the exception of the large economies of Nigeria and South Africa, these percentages are not surprising for a region composed primarily of relatively small, open economies. Other standard measures of openness are consistent with this pattern.

Journal of Development Studies, 2005