 Bilateral Free Trade Agreements and Customs Unions: The Impact of the EU Republic of South Africa Free Trade Agreement on BotswanaScott McDonald () and Terrie Walmsley () The World Economy, 2008, vol. 31, issue 8, 993-1029 Abstract: The EU has indicated that after 2008 its trade relationships with developing countries will be dominated by the development of preferential trade agreements. Although not a consequence of the Cotonou Agreement, the free trade agreement between the EU and the Republic of South Africa (EU RSA FTA) was clearly one of the first fruits of this approach to trade relationships. However, there is no evidence that the design of the EU RSA FTA incorporated a comprehensive general equilibrium evaluation of the agreement for either the signatories or the other southern African nations. The analyses reported here indicate that while the EU RSA FTA may substantially benefit the signatories, there are appreciable negative impacts for other states, especially the Republic of South Africa's immediate neighbours. Moreover, the analyses indicate that the structural adjustments for African economies signalled by the FTA are substantial, which implies that there will be substantial economic costs associated with the FTA. Date: 2008 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:worlde:v:31:y:2008:i:8:p:993-1029 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article The World Economy is currently edited by David Greenaway More articles in The World Economy from Wiley Blackwell |
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