Assessing The Impact Of Non-reciprocal Trade Preferences The Case Of African Growth And Opportunity Act (agoa) And Subsaharan Africas Agricultural Exports To The United States Of America
The purpose of the paper is to discuss and analyze the impact of Non ReciprocalrnTrade Preferences the case of African Growth and Opportunity (AGOA) on thernagricltltural exports of Sub Saharan .4frica. That is its aim is to show whether thernAGOA has increased agricultural exports from SSA to the United States of America.rnThe researcher employs both descriptive and empirical analysis approaches. Pre andrnPost AGOA agricultural export performance of Sub Saharan are among descriptivelyrnanalyzed issues. For empirical analysis part, we employ the fixed effect gravity modelrnof international trade. We take three samples the first is a sample of 46 SSArncountries, Secondly a sample of 30 countries whose average yearly agriculturalrnexports is >= 500,000 US dollars and finally a sample of 9 major agriculturalrnexporters in SSA countries. The period of time covered under the study is from 1996•rn2007 which is 5 years before the enactment of AGOA and the rest 7 years post AGOArnperiod.rnOur descriptive evidence shows that the AGOA has had insignificant impact on thernagricultural exports of Sub• Saharan Africa.rnSimilarly the empirical estimates shows for the first sample with 46 SSA countriesrnAGOA has led to a decline in average exports of SSA by 19%, for the second samplernwith 30 SSA countries whose yearly average agricultural exports is >= $ 500,000rnAGOA has led to an increase in agricultural exports approximately by 35% onrnaverage, while for the third sample, major agricultural exporters, averagely AGOArnhas led to increase in agricultural exports approximately by 18%, but in all the threernsamples considered the AGOA dummy was not statistically different from. zero.rnTherefore, one may conclude that AGOA has induced neither an increase nor a decline inrnSSA agricultural exports to the US.