This Selected Issues paper for Algeria analyzes the potential economic impact of Algeria’s Association Agreement with the European Union (AAEU). The paper lays out the major elements of Algeria’s AAEU and makes a comparison with other AAEUs. It discusses the potential economic...

This Selected Issues paper for Kenya, Uganda, and United Republic of Tanzania highlights their private sector credit markets, identifies their main obstacles in promoting credit to the private sector, and suggests a reform strategy. If the East African Community (EAC) countries decide to pursue...

This 2007 Article IV Consultation highlights that real GDP in South Africa grew by 5 percent in 2006 and continued to grow vigorously in early 2007. Growth was driven by strong domestic demand, with private consumption and investment spending supported by continuing robust consumer and business...

We study the performance of the four Western Hemisphere trading blocs during the period 1978-2001. For the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), trade integration outweighed trade diversion; for MERCOSUR, increased integration and trade diversion went hand in hand; for the Central American...

This paper provides a framework for understanding trade patterns in the Mashreq. An augmented gravity model is used to compare actual with expected levels of trade. Trade barriers, political uncertainty, and over-appreciation of domestic currencies seem to explain low levels of international...

This paper takes stock of the achievements toward integration in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) 10 years after the 1994 devaluation of the CFA franc. It investigates the lessons learned and evaluates progress toward economic convergence, examines the evolution of trade and...

This paper investigates whether a regional bloc would enlarge or remain stagnant in size using a model where enlargement is the endogenous outcome of the interaction between the supply of and demand for membership. We show that a maximum size of the bloc exists beyond which the regional...

Trade theories covering Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) are as diverse as the literature in search of their empirical support. To account for the model uncertainty that surrounds the validity of the competing PTA theories, we introduce Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) to the PTA literature....

Is the recent proliferation of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) in Asia a healthy development, or runs the risk of turning into an unmanageable "noodle bowl" in the future? The goal of this paper is to shed some light on this question. The results show that membership in the Asian RTAs...

This paper documents the expanding economic linkages between low-income countries (LICs) and a narrow group of "Emerging Market leaders" that have become major players in regional and global trade and financial flows. VAR models show that these linkages have increased the share of growth...