The impact of FTAs on MENA exports of intermediate and final goods

Adriana R. Cardozo, Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso and Paula L. Vogler

No 402, University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics from University of Goettingen, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper is the first to analyze the impact of free trade agreements (FTAs) and the harmonization of rules of origin (RoO) on Middle East and North African (MENA) countries' exports differentiating between final and intermediate goods for a global sample of trade partners. Data on exports from four MENA countries (Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia) to 61 destinations over the period 1995-2016 are used to estimate a structural gravity model applying a Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator. Moreover, the paper estimates the effect of the progressive adoption of the Pan-European-Mediterranean RoO. Results show that FTAs have been overall successful in increasing MENA exports. This is particularly truefor FTAs that eliminate protection on agricultural products. In contrast to the existing literature, we find that the agreements concluded with European countries raise MENA exports, whereas no significant impact is found for the application of the Pan-European RoO.

Keywords: gravity model; FTA; MENA; PPML; panel data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ara and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/223245/1/1727944933.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:cegedp:402

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics from University of Goettingen, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().