North-South Trade: Is Africa Unusual?

June 1, 1998

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David T. Coe, and Willy A Hoffmaister. North-South Trade: Is Africa Unusual?, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 1998) accessed December 23, 2024

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

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.

Subject: Econometric analysis, Exports, Gravity models, International trade, Plurilateral trade, Trade balance, Trade policy

Keywords: Africa, Asia and Pacific, Bilateral trade, Bilaterial trade, Countries rise, Country, Country region, Developing country, Developing country region, Exports, Gravity model, Gravity models, Industrial country, Middle East, North Africa, North America, Plurilateral trade, Time effect, Time trend, Trade, Trade balance, Trade level, Trade openness, Trade policy, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

27
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 1998/094
Stock No:

WPIEA0941998
ISBN:

9781451851694
ISSN:

1018-5941

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