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on Africa |
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Issue of 2005‒10‒04
three papers chosen by Suzanne McCoskey Foreign Service Institute, US Department of State |
| By: | Jean-Christophe Bureau; Sébastien Jean; Alan Matthews |
| Abstract: | Recent analyses suggest that the impact of agricultural trade liberalization on developing countries will be very uneven. Simulations suggest that the effects of agricultural trade liberalization will be small, overall, and are likely to be negative for a significant number of developing countries. The Doha Round focuses on tariff issues, but some developing countries currently have practically duty-free access to European and North American markets under preferential regimes. Multilateral liberalization will erode the benefits of these preferences, which are presently rather well utilized in the agricultural sector. While South American and East Asian countries should benefit from an agricultural agreement, African and Caribbean countries are unlikely to do so. The main obstacles to the exports of the sub-Saharan African and Least Developed Countries appear to be in the non-tariff area (sanitary, phytosanitary standards) which increasingly originate from the private sector and are not dealt with under the Doha framework (traceability requirements, etc.). An agreement in Doha is unlikely to solve these problems and open large markets for the poorest countries. While this is not an argument to give up multilateral liberalization, a more specific and differentiated treatment should be considered in WTO rules, and corrective measures should be implemented. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural trade liberalization; WTO; developing countries |
| JEL: | F13 Q17 |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2005-13&r=afr |
| By: | Toke Aidt; Jaysari Dutta; Vania Sena |
| Abstract: | We study the joint determination of corruption and economic growth. Our model can generate multiple equilibria when complementarity between corruption and growth is sufficiently strong. Our estimates of the impact of corruption on growth take into account that corruption is endogenous and that there may exist different growth/corruption regimes. In a cross section of countries in the 1990s,we identify two regimes, conditional on the quality of political institutions. In the regime with high quality political institutions, corruption has a negative impact on growth. In the regime with low quality institutions, corruption has, overall, little impact on growth, but, if anything, the impact is, surprisingly, positive. |
| Keywords: | Growth; corruption; threshold effects; governance; democracy; corruption. |
| JEL: | D72 D82 |
| Date: | 2005–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:0540&r=afr |
| By: | James L.Butkiewicz (Department of Economics,University of Delaware); Halit Yanikkaya (Department of Economics, Celal Bayar University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of sociopolitical instability on long-run growth. The impacts of socio-political instability are estimated by cross-country growth regressions for a panel of nations over a thirty-year sample period. Overall, our results are consistent with the existing literature implying that, at best, a weak relationship exists between sociopolitical instability and growth. More importantly, this relationship depends crucially on the measure of sociopolitical instability used. Specifically, while government instability and social instability measures typically have weak and, in some instances, a positive, relationship with growth, political violence indicators have a negative and significant impact on growth. Furthermore, our results indicate that sociopolitical instability has larger adverse effects on countries with higher levels of development and democracy. Although the issue of potential reverse causality is widely emphasized in the literature, our IV estimation results imply that simultaneity is not a severe problem for estimates of empirical growth models including sociopolitical instability measures. On the contrary, the effects of outlier countries and, to a lesser degree, parameter heterogeneity are much more serious problems for estimates using these variables. Length pages: 30 pages |
| Keywords: | Socio-political Instability; Political Violence; Growth |
| JEL: | O40 K40 |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dlw:wpaper:04-04&r=afr |