Congo's vital dependence on trade for development stands in contradiction with its trade policy. As a member of the CEMAC, Congo's tariff scheme at least formally is guided by CEMAC's 1994 trade regime agreement. This paper shows CEMAC's customs code is restrictive relative to that of comparable...

Regional integration has been seen in Africa as a means of encouraging trade and securing economies of scale. This paper examines in detail the prospects and challenges for trade expansion in the two most prominent arrangements in eastern and southern Africa: the Common Market for Eastern and...

This paper provides an update on the main elements of the reform agenda concerning the CEMAC trade regime as well as a tentative quantitative assessment of selected effects on tariff revenues and trade patterns. Notwithstanding data limitations, the key messages from the analysis are as follows....

In the Doha Round, negotiators are discussing the elimination or continuation of the special agricultural safeguards introduced by the Uruguay Round as well as the creation of special safeguard mechanism for use by developing countries. This paper argues that, in violation of the spirit of the...

The paper contributes to the discussion about the revenue implications of trade reform by assessing the approximate fiscal revenue impact of different liberalization formulae under consideration in multilateral trade negotiations for a group of low- and middle-income countries. The study applies...

This paper studies the behavior of China’s foreign trade in the 1980s. Chinese customs data are used to construct, for the first time, quarterly unit value and volume series that are then used to estimate foreign trade income and price elasticities. The estimated export supply price...

This paper provides an overview of trade reform in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) since 1996 and a quantitative assessment of potential effects on trade patterns and tariff revenue of the current reform agenda. Despite evidence of significant trade complementarities within...

Although theory suggests that the real exchange rate should depreciate after a credible trade liberalization but could appreciate temporarily with a noncredible one, little empirical evidence exists. Unlike existing studies that use either indirect tests or unreliable openness measures, this...

This paper evaluates the effects on the Bangladeshi economy of phasing out textile and clothing (T&C) quotas currently maintained by industrial countries. The planned abolition of the quotas under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing in 2005 will alter the competitiveness of various exporting...

Preference erosion has become an obstacle to multilateral trade liberalization, as beneficiaries of trade preferences have an incentive to resist reductions in mostfavored- nation (MFN) tariffs. This study identifies middle-income developing countries that are vulnerable to export revenue loss...