IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/pugtwp/331489.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Explaining Africa’s Export Performance – Taking a New Look

Author

Listed:
  • Morrissey, Oliver
  • Mold, Andrew

Abstract

Africa’s export performance over recent decades is typically portrayed as being poor. This paper takes a new look at the record, using data on the volume rather than the value of African exports. When analysed in volume terms a quite different picture of African export performance emerges. According to UNCTAD data, between 1990-2002 the export volumes for non-oil exporters actually increased by over 130%. This impressive supply-side performance has not been properly documented. Previous studies have fixed too much attention to the value of African exports, something which, as primary commodity exporters, is largely beyond their control. The study uses estimates of volume of exports, available from UNCTAD, to explain African trade performance. Using a dynamic panel data analysis for 48 African countries over the period 1987-2002, the key determinants of export performance are ascertained. The implications of the findings for policy makers are subsequently discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Morrissey, Oliver & Mold, Andrew, 2006. "Explaining Africa’s Export Performance – Taking a New Look," Conference papers 331489, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:pugtwp:331489
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/331489/files/2274.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2001. "The Six Major Puzzles in International Macroeconomics: Is There a Common Cause?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Volume 15, pages 339-412, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Obstfeld, Maurice & Taylor, Alan M., 1997. "Nonlinear Aspects of Goods-Market Arbitrage and Adjustment: Heckscher's Commodity Points Revisited," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 441-479, December.
    3. Forslid, Rikard & Haaland, Jan I. & Midelfart Knarvik, Karen Helene, 2002. "A U-shaped Europe?: A simulation study of industrial location," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 273-297, August.
    4. repec:dau:papers:123456789/6497 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Joseph Francois & Hans Van Meijl & Frank Van Tongeren, 2005. "Trade liberalization in the Doha Development Round [Trade in Manufactures, the Outcome of the Uruguay Round and Developing Country Interests]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 20(42), pages 350-391.
    6. repec:oup:ecpoli:v:20:y:2005:i:42:p:349-391 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items 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. Anderson Michael A. & Schaefer Kurt C. & Smith Stephen L. S., 2013. "Can Price Dispersion Reveal Distance-Related Trade Costs? Evidence from the United States," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 151-173, June.
    2. Tomasz Iwanow & Colin Kirkpatrick, 2007. "Trade facilitation, regulatory quality and export performance," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(6), pages 735-753.
    3. Alan M. Taylor & Mark P. Taylor, 2004. "The Purchasing Power Parity Debate," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 135-158, Fall.
    4. Bec, Frédérique & Zeng, Songlin, 2013. "Are Southeast Asian real exchange rates mean reverting?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 265-282.
    5. Goldberg, Pinelopi K. & Verboven, Frank, 2005. "Market integration and convergence to the Law of One Price: evidence from the European car market," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 49-73, January.
    6. Jiandong Ju & Shang-Jin Wei, 2007. "Current Account Adjustment: Some New Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 13388, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Martin Cincibuch & Jiří Podpiera, 2006. "Beyond Balassa–Samuelson: Real appreciation in tradables in transition countries1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 14(3), pages 547-573, July.
    8. Rodolphe Blavy & Luciana Juvenal, 2009. "Mexico's integration into NAFTA markets: a view from sectoral real exchange rates," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 91(Sep), pages 441-464.
    9. Sarno, Lucio & Taylor, Mark P. & Chowdhury, Ibrahim, 2004. "Nonlinear dynamics in deviations from the law of one price: a broad-based empirical study," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 1-25, February.
    10. Georg H. Strasser, 2010. "The Efficiency of the Global Markets for Final Goods and Productive Capabilities," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 766, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 31 Jan 2012.
    11. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    12. Charles Engel, 2003. "Expenditure Switching and Exchange-Rate Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2002, Volume 17, pages 231-300, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Mototsugu Shintani, 2006. "A nonparametric measure of convergence towards purchasing power parity," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(5), pages 589-604.
    14. Ahmad, Yamin & Lo, Ming Chien & Mykhaylova, Olena, 2013. "Volatility and persistence of simulated DSGE real exchange rates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 38-41.
    15. O'Connell, Paul G. J. & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2002. ""The bigger they are, the harder they fall": Retail price differences across U.S. cities," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 21-53, January.
    16. Goodness C. Aye & Mehmet Balcilar & Adél Bosch & Rangan Gupta & Francois Stofberg, 2013. "The out-of-sample forecasting performance of non-linear models of real exchange rate behaviour: The case of the South African Rand," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 10(1), pages 121-148, April.
    17. Festus Ebo Turkson, 2011. "Logistics and Bilateral Exports in Developing Countries: A Multiplicative Form Estimation of the Logistics Augmented Gravity Equation," Discussion Papers 11/06, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    18. Frédérique Bec & Anders Rahbek & Neil Shephard, 2008. "The ACR Model: A Multivariate Dynamic Mixture Autoregression," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(5), pages 583-618, October.
    19. Maurice Obstfeld & Alan M. Taylor, 2003. "Globalization and Capital Markets," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization in Historical Perspective, pages 121-188, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Linda Tesar, 2005. "A Re-Examination of the Border Effect," NBER Working Papers 11706, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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:ags:pugtwp:331489. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gtpurus.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.