IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/adv/wpaper/200406.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regional Integration and Poverty: A case study of Bolivia

Author

Listed:
  • Osvaldo Nina

    (Grupo Integral)

  • Lykke E. Andersen

    (Institute for Advanced Development Studies)

Abstract

This paper investigates the impacts of regional integration processes on poverty in Bolivia. It first demonstrates that regional integration has stimulated a diversion of trade away from traditional US and EU markets towards countries of MERCOSUR and the Andean Community. At the same time, the composition of exports has changed from predominantly minerals towards slightly more elaborated goods, such as vegetable fats, food and beverages. The paper presents econometric analyses of the impact of imports, exports and FDI (by sector, and trade block) on individual labor incomes and household poverty status. The results show that higher exports generally tend to benefit the workers who work in the exporting sectors. However, this result only holds for export sectors that exploit some natural resource rents (mining, hydrocarbons, modern agriculture), and not for those which rely purely on low wages in order to be competitive (most manufacturing sectors). Imports typically have a negative effect on worker salaries, except the imports of capital goods, which do not compete with local production. This implies that the change towards more regional trade of goods with a smaller natural resource rent component is unlikely to contribute to a reduction in poverty. For exports and FDI to be helpful for reducing poverty, they would have to focus on sectors, which are labor intensive and at the same time exploit some natural resource rents. Sectors that might fulfill these criteria are modern agriculture and tourism.

Suggested Citation

  • Osvaldo Nina & Lykke E. Andersen, 2004. "Regional Integration and Poverty: A case study of Bolivia," Development Research Working Paper Series 06/2004, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.
  • Handle: RePEc:adv:wpaper:200406
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inesad.edu.bo/pdf/wp06_2004.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schiff, Maurice & Winters, L Alan, 1998. "Regional Integration as Diplomacy," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 12(2), pages 271-295, May.
    2. Maurice Schiff & L. Alan Winters, 2003. "Regional Integration and Development," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15172.
    3. Melanie Grosse & Stephan Klasen & Julius Spatz, 2005. "Creating National Poverty Profiles and Growth Incidence Curves with Incomplete Income or Consumption Expenditure Data: An Application to Bolivia," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 129, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lykke E. Andersen & Osvaldo Nina, 2007. "Geographical Constraints to Growth in Bolivia," Development Research Working Paper Series 05/2007, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.
    2. Uexküll, Erik von., 2012. "Regional trade and employment in ECOWAS," ILO Working Papers 994687913402676, International Labour Organization.
    3. repec:ilo:ilowps:468791 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Islam, Sulequl, 2003. "Expansions of the European Union and the NAFTA: Implications for New and Non-Member countries," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 3(2).
    2. Kaminski, Bartlomiej, 2006. "Bulgaria's institutions and policies : integrating into Pan-European markets," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3864, The World Bank.
    3. Oksana Harbuzyuk & Stefan Lutz, 2008. "Analyzing trade opening in Ukraine: effects of a customs union with the EU," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 221-238, September.
    4. Scrieciu, Silviu Serban, 2004. "Assessing the Economic Impacts of Incorporating Romania's Agricultural and Food Sectors into EU's Customs Union: An Applied General Equilibrium Approach," Development Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 30543, University of Manchester, Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM).
    5. Vicard, Vincent, 2012. "Trade, conflict, and political integration: Explaining the heterogeneity of regional trade agreements," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 54-71.
    6. Dominique Hachette, 2005. "Capítulo VI: El Regionalismo Latinoamericano o Aventuras Integracionistas Continentales," Documentos de Trabajo 293, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    7. Hiro Lee & Dominique van der Mensbrugghe, 2007. "Regional Integration, Sectoral Adjustments and Natural Groupings in East Asia," OSIPP Discussion Paper 07E008, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.
    8. Céline Carrère & Maurice Schiff, 2005. "On the Geography of Trade. Distance is Alive and Well," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 56(6), pages 1249-1274.
    9. Jim Rose & Wayne Stevens, 2004. "Global Connectedness and Bilateral Economic Linkages - Which Countries?," Treasury Working Paper Series 04/09, New Zealand Treasury.
    10. James E. Anderson, 2008. "Economic Integration and the Civilising Commerce Hypothesis," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 141-157, January.
    11. Will Bartlett, 2009. "Regional integration and free-trade agreements in the Balkans: opportunities, obstacles and policy issues," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 25-46, May.
    12. Adama BAH & Sampawende Jules TAPSOBA, 2010. "Civil Conflicts and Regional Economic Integration Outcomes in Africa," Working Papers 201009, CERDI.
    13. Mavroidis, Petros C., 2011. "Always look at the bright side of non-delivery: WTO and Preferential Trade Agreements, yesterday and today," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 375-387, July.
    14. Schiff,Maurice & Wang, Yanling, 2003. "Regional integration and technology diffusion : the case of the North America free trade agreement," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3132, The World Bank.
    15. Alessia Lo Turco, 2005. "South-South Trade Agreements, Location of Production and Inequality in Latin America," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 127, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    16. Daniel Lederman & Çaglar Özden, 2007. "Geopolitical Interests And Preferential Access To U.S. Markets," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 235-258, July.
    17. Shujiro Urata & Misa Okabe, 2009. "The Impacts Of Free Trade Agreements On Trade Flows: An Application Of The Gravity Model Approach," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Christopher Findlay & Shujiro Urata (ed.), Free Trade Agreements In The Asia Pacific, chapter 6, pages 195-239, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. James Anderson, 2009. "Does trade foster contract enforcement?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 41(1), pages 105-130, October.
    19. Walkenhorst, Peter, 2006. "Trade policy and regionalism in the Central African Republic," MPRA Paper 23863, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Lo Turco. A., 2005. "Are South-South RTAs Growth Enhancing. The Case of Latin American Agreements, 1960-2000," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 5(2).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Regional integration; poverty; Bolivia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:adv:wpaper:200406. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lykke Andersen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inesabo.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.