Armenia’s trade performance in 1995-2002 and the effect of closed borders: a cross-country perspective

The paper deals with two issues. First, it focuses on the analysis of Armenia’s trade performance based on the utilization of standard statistical models and develops comparative estimates of this performance relative to the peer countries. The comparison is undertaken in terms of trade openness, diversification, and composition. The main finding is that Armenia has been lagging in its export development relative to most CIS countries. The recent improvements in exports helped somewhat to reduce the gap. The second part of the paper provides for re-estimation of the “costs of blockade” effect. Armenia’s trade under-performance cannot be explained in terms of distorted government policies, because Armenia is recognized as a reform leader in the CIS.