An Examination of Morocco's Trade Options with the EUG. Philippidis and A.I. Sanjuán Journal of African Economies, 2007, vol. 16, issue 2, pages 259-300 Abstract: As a moderate North African Arab state, Morocco has ratified preferential free trade agreements with both the EU and the USA. However, the potential importance of improved agro-food market access with the EU has been largely ignored in Morocco-EU Association Agreement (MEAA). Indeed, in comparison with the depth of the agro-food reforms in the Morroco-US agreement, the MEAA is largely incomplete. Accordingly, as a first objective we employ a modified computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to assess the potential for further long run trade and growth in Morocco through agro-food tariff abolition. Moreover, we investigate whether there is an economic incentive for such a EU countermovement to restore competitive parity with the US. As a further aim, we examine the trade inhibiting implications of non-tariff barrier (NTB) trade costs (e.g., red tape, licensing laws etc.), which have hitherto largely escaped reform. Thus, we estimate NTB trade cost tariff equivalents (TEs) employing a theoretically consistent gravity specification. TEs are implemented into our CGE model to measure the trade and growth impacts from NTB removal in agro-food and across all Moroccan-EU trade. While agro-food liberalisation yields disappointing results for Morocco, the potential for development-led policies through elimination of NTBs is highly appealing. Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press. There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Journal of African Economies is edited by Marcel Fafchamps More articles in Journal of African Economies from Oxford University Press |
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