A Primer on the MFA Maze

The paper identifies the potential sources of allocative inefficiency generated by the Multi-Fiber Agreements (MFA) and examines the evidence for such inefficiencies. Five sources of inefficiency are identified relating to inefficient allocations across countries, across consumers, and among firms within constrained countries. Evidence is first provided from trends in import shares for aggregate categories of textiles and clothing before and during the MFA. Second, evidence is provided from a detailed examination of quota utilization rates and price differentials among EC importing countries.