The African Growth and Opportunity Act, exports, and development in Sub-Saharan Africa (original) (raw)
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Rethinking Trade Preferences: How Africa Can Diversify its Exports
The World Economy, 2007
This paper argues that the contribution of trade preferences to economic development needs to be reappraised in light of the growth of globalised trade in manufactures. Trade preferences may be able to act as a catalyst for manufacturing exports, leading to rapid growth in exports and employment. To do so, preferences need to be designed to be consistent with international trade in fragmented 'tasks' (as opposed to complete products) and need to be open to countries with sufficient levels of complementary inputs such as skills and infrastructure. Recent experience with the African Growth and Opportunities Act shows that, in the right conditions, Sub-Saharan African countries have had large manufacturing export supply response to trade preferences.
Policy Research Working Papers, 2004
The ability to export clothing products under preferences with liberal rules of origin is the key factor currently determining whether the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has a significant impact on non-oil exporting African countries. At present only a small number of countries receive substantial benefits and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) that do not receive preferences for clothing have yet to see an impact of AGOA on their overall exports. However, the benefits from exporting clothing under AGOA appear fragile in the face of the removal of quotas in the United States on major suppliers, such as China, at the end of 2004, and the planned removal of the liberal rules of origin that allow for the global sourcing of fabrics from least-cost locations. To entrench and enhance the benefits of AGOA, it is important that the scheme be extended over a much longer period, if not made permanent, and the special liberal rules of origin for clothing products be extended considerably beyond 2004. The effective inclusion of textile products and a number of high-duty agricultural products would also help to broaden the range of opportunities for African exporters in the U.S. market. Nevertheless it is important that the opportunities created by AGOA are integrated into a broader framework for promoting trade and that it be recognized that if the opportunities offered by more open trade are to be exploited there must be concerted efforts to improve the environment for investment in countries covered by AGOA.
Tariff Preferences as a Determinant for Exports from Sub-Saharan Africa
2013
This paper examines the impact of market access conditions as a determinant of exports from sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis focuses on tariffs and considers both direct market access (the tariffs faced by exports from sub-Saharan Africa) and relative market access conditions (the preferential margin of African exports relative to that of other competitors). The results find that both direct market access conditions and relative market access conditions matter, although relative market access conditions matter in a larger number of cases. This suggests that the exports from the countries of sub-Saharan Africa often face more competition from foreign competitors than from domestic industries in their destination markets. We also find that, given the relatively large tariffs currently applied to intraregional trade, complete tariff liberalization within the countries of sub-Saharan Africa represents a significant incentive for intraregional trade.
Journal of International Development, 2008
We evaluate the impact of the unilateral trade policy concession known as African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) on U.S. imports from eligible Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Using U.S.-SSA countries' trade data that span the years 1991-2006, we find that AGOA has contributed to the initiation of new and the intensification of existing U.S. imports in both manufactured and non-manufactured goods and several product categories. However, compared to its import initiation impact, the import intensification effect of the Act has been marginal. Our results have important policy implication for further intensification of African exports to the U.S. markets.
PSL Quarterly Review, 2018
This paper evaluates the impact of the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade arrangement on the growth of exports from Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Using several variants of propensity score matching techniques, results show that the impact of AGOA on SSA exports is generally negative and statistically significant. The same conclusion is reached using the difference in differences (DID) method. Further, descriptive statistics show that the proportions of Africa’s exports going to the EU and the US since 2011 have been declining and the export shares of the three largest exporters to the US, namely, South Africa, Nigeria and Angola, are falling. JEL codes : F13, F14 Keywords : AGOA, SSA, propensity score matching
Rethinking Trade Preferences for Sub-Saharan Africa
Policy-related discussion on assisting countries to make use of trade preferences tends to focus on the provision of hard infrastructure to facilitate external economies from modern-sector exports. This is as opposed to harnessing potential knowledge spillovers. This omission is emblematic of tensions within new trade/new growth theory. Using two country case studies in Asia -Bangladesh and Cambodia -this article shows how different approaches towards making use of trade preferences have resulted in divergent industrial structures and firm-level technological capability indicators. Less stringent rules of origin requirements may offer new opportunities for late industrialisers in sub-Saharan Africa to tap into the modern export sector, but a more interventionist approach towards harnessing knowledge spillovers may also be necessary. which erupted in 2008. They also come at a time of changing North-South trade relations more generally, including, for example, the end of non-reciprocal trade relations between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries because of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and, more broadly, the proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs).