North-South Trade : Is Africa Unusual? /

We estimate a gravity model to address the question of whether Africa's bilateral trade with industrial countries is 'unusual' compared with other developing country regions. Our main finding is that the unusually low level of African trade is explained by economic size, geographical...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Coe, David
Other Authors: Hoffmaister, Willy
Format: Journal
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 1998.
Series:IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 1998/094
Online Access:Full text available on IMF
Description
Summary:We estimate a gravity model to address the question of whether Africa's bilateral trade with industrial countries is 'unusual' compared with other developing country regions. Our main finding is that the unusually low level of African trade is explained by economic size, geographical distance, and population. This result holds after controlling for a country's access to the sea, composition of exports, linguistic ties with industrial countries, and trade policies. If anything, the average African country tends to 'overtrade' compared with developing countries in other regions, although the degree to which Africa overtrades has steadily declined over the past two-and-one-half decades.
Item Description:<strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required
<strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required
Physical Description:1 online resource (27 pages)
Format:Mode of access: Internet
ISSN:1018-5941
Access:Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students