Impacts of Trade Liberalization in the Least Developed Countries: Evidence From Lao PDR

Phouphet Kyophilavong and Kazunobu Hayakawa

The Developing Economies, 2024, vol. 62, issue 1, 45-67

Abstract: This study empirically investigates the effects of tariff reductions in a least developed country on its economy. Specifically, we focus on tariff reductions based on the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in Laos. First, we analyze how the reduction of AFTA tariff rates in Laos affects Laos's imports from AFTA member countries. Our main finding is that the reduction of AFTA tariffs in Laos does not significantly change Laos's imports. Second, we investigate their effects on plant‐level employment. Consistent with the observation of a negligible change in Laos's imports, we find no significant changes in plant‐level employment. In short, although Laos decreased its tariff rates against other AFTA members, imports from them did not significantly increase, and no significant changes occurred in employment. We discuss several possible reasons for these insignificant effects.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/deve.12374

Related works:
Working Paper: Impacts of trade liberalization in the least developed countries: evidence from Lao PDR (2022)
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:bla:deveco:v:62:y:2024:i:1:p:45-67

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0012-1533

Access Statistics for this article

The Developing Economies is currently edited by Katsuji Nakagane

More articles in The Developing Economies from Institute of Developing Economies Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().