This paper explores whether one of the most important U.S. policies towards Africa of the past few decades achieved its desired result. In 2000, the United States dropped trade restrictions on a broad list of products through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Since the Act was...

Using administrative data for an exhaustive sample of formally registered firms, reveals that the engagement of Rwandan firms in global value chains (GVCs) is remarkably limited. The paper documents several patterns of firm-level exports and compares firm characteristics between exporters and...