Do South-South trade agreements increase trade? Commodity-level evidence from COMESA

Anna Maria Mayda and Chad Steinberg

Canadian Journal of Economics, 2009, vol. 42, issue 4, 1361-1389

Abstract: South-South trade agreements are proliferating. Yet the impact of these agreements is largely unknown, as existing North-North and North-South micro-level studies are likely to yield misleading predictions for South-South trade agreements. This paper estimates the impact of COMESA on Uganda's imports between 1994 and 2003. Detailed import and tariff data at the 6-digit Harmonized System level are used for more than 1,000 commodities. Based on a difference-in-difference estimation strategy, the paper finds that - in contrast to evidence from aggregate statistics - COMESA's preferential tariff liberalization has not considerably increased Uganda's trade with member countries, on average, across sectors. The effect, however, is heterogeneous across sectors. Finally, the paper finds no evidence of trade-diversion effects.

JEL-codes: F13 O24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Do South-South Trade Agreements Increase Trade? Commodity-Level Evidence from COMESA (2008)
Working Paper: Do South-South Trade Agreements Increase Trade? Commodity-Level Evidence from COMESA (2006)
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