While FTA negotiations are proliferating, our paper shows that targeting the appropriate sector is crucial for generating employment opportunities subsequent to FTA. In particular, we show that, countering conventional wisdom, targeting skill-biased exports and not the sector that employs...

This study analyses the impact of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) on the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) using a recursively dynamic global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, MAGNET. The study considers two policy measures: cuts in bilateral...

On 30th May 2024, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) celebrated its fifth anniversary, which legally implied that the agreement is up for review for possible amendments. To kickstart this review, the Thirty-Seventh Ordinary Session of the African Union Summit (held in February...

Adequate policy space is essential for resource-rich countries to move up the value chain and seize the opportunities presented by global decarbonization and the demand for low-carbon technologies. However, WTO rules, investment and free trade agreements (FTAs) deprive nonhegemonic powers of the...

While FTA negotiations are proliferating, our paper shows that targeting the appropriate sector is crucial for generating employment opportunities subsequent to FTA. In particular, we show that, countering conventional wisdom, targeting skill-biased exports and not the sector that employs...

Empirical models of trade agreements implicitly assume that withdrawal from a trade agreement has an equal and opposite trade effect as accession, i.e., symmetry. With increasing opposition to international economic cooperation, it becomes urgent to test this assumption. We analyze a...

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyse the international political economy of Korea and its effects due to geopolitical tension between China and the USA. Design/methodology/approach - Economic war between China and the USA has prolonged longer than expected. Aftermath of the COVID-19...

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is considered as one of the successful regional cooperations and has played a remarkable role in regional, and potentially global, order through its principles of consensus, non-interference, and peaceful resolution of conflicts, providing platform for...

(1) Background: The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted global trade, posing challenges for regional trade agreements such as the Pacific Alliance, comprising Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. This study investigates the Pacific Alliance's impact on trade creation and diversion during the...

This study employs the economy-wide model DEMETRA to provide a detailed characterisation of the impacts of the African Continental Free Trade Area on the Ghanaian economy from 2020 to 2035 and how these economy-wide impacts will affect food consumption and affordability. It considers two...

Is the harmonization of different food standards between countries in the context of free trade agreements exclusively positive, or is there a risk of high social costs for consumers? The harmonization of different national regulations plays an important role in contemporary trade policy. In...

China has gradually established pilot free trade zones and implemented certain specific policies for its enterprises to deepen the economic system reform and expand the degree of market opening to the outside world. The establishment of a Free Trade Area exerts spillover effects and positive...

Background: With a rapidly growing young population, the African continent provides a high but barely exploited economic potential. Creating an African free trade zone is one of the African Union’s major initiatives to increase prosperity. Even though the AfCFTA has already come into force,...

Rules of origin differ among overlapping free trade agreements, raising firm compliance costs, discouraging utilization of trade preferences, and hindering regional value chains. Using a unique dataset comparing the restrictiveness of product-specific rules of origin (PSRO) between the Regional...

South Africa-Africa trade was examined for 2001-2021 and results show that Africa is an important market for South Africa's manufactured products and there is ease of market access for these products; its trade with Africa is highly complementary; and it has strong trade linkages with Africa's...

This paper provides estimates of the potential for EAC member countries to increase exports to the rest of Africa under AfCFTA, assuming the other countries reduce tariffs on imports from the EAC. We adopt a simple approach to identify the markets (countries) and products most likely to benefit...