IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/55413.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Malfunctioning of the Gulf Cooperation Council Single Market: Features, Causes and Remedies

Author

Listed:
  • Abdulghaffar, Mahmood
  • Al-Ubaydli, Omar
  • Mahmood, Omar

Abstract

Five years after its inception, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) single market is malfunctioning in a litany of ways: there remain restrictions on the movement of goods, capital and labor across political boundaries. This paper describes the GCC single market’s malfunctions. We also propose remedies, taking advantage of the single market experiences of, among others, the European Union. A key conclusion is that there is an absence of GCC supranational political institutions powerful enough to enforce rules, with the exception of the Supreme Council, which is itself not designed to deal with day-to-day issues such as enforcing a single market. Consequently, the GCC needs to alter its institutional structure if it wants the single market to operate correctly.

Suggested Citation

  • Abdulghaffar, Mahmood & Al-Ubaydli, Omar & Mahmood, Omar, 2014. "The Malfunctioning of the Gulf Cooperation Council Single Market: Features, Causes and Remedies," MPRA Paper 55413, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:55413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/55413/1/MPRA_paper_55413.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bottasso, Anna & Sembenelli, Alessandro, 2001. "Market power, productivity and the EU Single Market Program: Evidence from a panel of Italian firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 167-186, January.
    2. Magda Kandil & Mohamed Trabelsi, 2012. "Is the Announced Monetary Union in GCC Countries Feasible? A Multivariate Structural Var Approach," Middle East Development Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 1250001-121, January.
    3. Michèle Belot & Sjef Ederveen, 2012. "Cultural barriers in migration between OECD countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 1077-1105, July.
    4. Willem H. Buiter, 2010. "Economic, Political and Institutional Prerequisites for Monetary Union Among the Members of the Gulf Cooperation Council," Chapters, in: Ronald MacDonald & Abdulrazak Al Faris (ed.), Currency Union and Exchange Rate Issues, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Terry M. Moe, 2012. "Delegation, Control, and the Study of Public Bureaucracy [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    6. Ronald MacDonald & Abdulrazak Al Faris (ed.), 2010. "Currency Union and Exchange Rate Issues," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13764.
    7. Chris Allen & Michael Gasiorek & Alasdair Smith, 1998. "The competition effects of the Single Market in Europe," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 13(27), pages 440-486.
    8. Baldwin, Richard E. & Venables, Anthony J., 1995. "Regional economic integration," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 31, pages 1597-1644, Elsevier.
    9. Ali Darrat & Fatima Al-Shamsi, 2005. "On the path of integration in the Gulf region," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(9), pages 1055-1062.
    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. Oscar Bajo-Rubio & Carmen Díaz-Roldán & Antonio G. Gómez-Plana, 2015. "Price-cost Margins and Economic Integration: How Important is the Pro-competitive Effect?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5), pages 893-898, May.
    2. Essahbi Essaadi, 2017. "The feasibility of currency union in Gulf Cooperation Council countries: A business cycle synchronisation view," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(10), pages 2153-2171, October.
    3. Takagi, Shinji, 2012. "Establishing Monetary Union in the Gulf Cooperation Council: What Lessons for Regional Cooperation?," ADBI Working Papers 390, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    4. Kim, Won Joong & Hammoudeh, Shawkat, 2013. "Impacts of global and domestic shocks on inflation and economic growth for actual and potential GCC member countries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 298-317.
    5. Ashraf Nakibullah, 2017. "State of Shocks Synchronization among Members of the GCC," Research in World Economy, Research in World Economy, Sciedu Press, vol. 8(1), pages 15-23, June.
    6. Arzu Akkoyunlu-Wigley & Sevinc Mihci, 2006. "Effects of the customs union with the European Union on the market structure and pricing behaviour of the Turkish manufacturing industry," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(20), pages 2443-2452.
    7. Óscar Bajo Rubio & Antonio Gómez Gómez-Plana, 2000. "The Role of Country Size and Returns to Scale in Empirical Assessments of Economic Integration: The Case of Spain," Documentos de Trabajo - Lan Gaiak Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra 0005, Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra.
    8. Greenaway, David & Torstensson, Johan, 2000. "Economic Geography, Comparative Advantage and Trade within Industries: Evidence from the OECD," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 15, pages 260-280.
    9. Andreas P. Cornett, 1998. "The problem of transition and reintegration of East and Central Europe: conceptual remarks and empirical problems," ERSA conference papers ersa98p185, European Regional Science Association.
    10. Sourafel Girma & Steve Thompson & Peter Wright, 2006. "International Acquisitions, Domestic Competition and Firm Performance," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 335-349.
    11. Serdar Öztürk & Buket Altınöz, 2022. "An Investigation of the Impact of Health Expenditures on International Migration as a Pull Factor in OECD Countries Using a Panel Vector Autoregression (PVAR) Approach," Journal of Economic Policy Researches, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 39-52, January.
    12. Michael Makowsky & Thomas Stratmann, 2014. "Politics, unemployment, and the enforcement of immigration law," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 131-153, July.
    13. Harald Badinger & Fritz Breuss, 2004. "Has Austria's Accession to the EU Triggered an Increase in Competition? A Sectoral Markup Study," WIFO Working Papers 220, WIFO.
    14. Zovanga L Kone & Maggie Y Liu & Aaditya Mattoo & Caglar Ozden & Siddharth Sharma, 2018. "Internal borders and migration in India," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(4), pages 729-759.
    15. Madani, Dorsati H., 2001. "South-South regional integration and industrial growth : the case of the Andean Pact," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2614, The World Bank.
    16. Haufler, Andreas & Pflüger, Michael, 2003. "Market structure and the taxation of international trade," Discussion Papers in Economics 106, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    17. Herrmann-Pillath, Carsten & Libman, Alexander & Yu, Xiaofan, 2014. "Economic integration in China: Politics and culture," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 470-492.
    18. Brücker, Herbert & Bertoli, Simone & Fernández-Huertas Moraga, Jesús, 2013. "The European Crisis and Migration to Germany: Expectations and the Diversion of Migration Flows," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79693, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Carlier, Guillaume & Dupuy, Arnaud & Galichon, Alfred & Sun, Yifei, 2021. "SISTA: Learning Optimal Transport Costs under Sparsity Constraints," IZA Discussion Papers 14397, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Hertel, Thomas & Hummels, David & Ivanic, Maros & Keeney, Roman, 2007. "How confident can we be of CGE-based assessments of Free Trade Agreements?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 611-635, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Single market; Economic integration; Gulf Cooperation Council;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F2 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business
    • F20 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - General
    • F36 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
    • F53 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Agreements and Observance; International Organizations
    • F6 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization
    • F60 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:55413. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.