"This paper examines the impact of trade facilitation on intra-African trade. The authors examine the role of trade facilitation reforms, such as increased port efficiency, improved customs, and regulatory environments, and upgrading services infrastructure on trade between African countries....

The "distance effect" measuring the elasticity of trade flows to distance has been rising since the early 1970s in a host of studies based on the gravity model, leading observers to call it the "distance puzzle". This paper reviews the evidence and explanations. Using an extensive data set of...