Assessing the Impacts of the GAFTA Agreement on Selected Members’ bilateral Agricultural Trade: an Application of the Gravity Model
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Yigezu Yigezu, Roberto Telleria, Mohamed Ahmed, Aden A. Aw-Hassan, Christelle Seredouma, Tamer Al-Shater. (27/11/2013). Assessing the Impacts of the GAFTA Agreement on Selected Members’ bilateral Agricultural Trade: an Application of the Gravity Model. American-Eurasian journal of agricultural & environmental sciences, 13 (2), pp. 269-290.
Abstract
Trade flows of agricultural commodities have always received a lot of attention in the Arab region,
mainly due to their implications on food security, politics and competition. Most international trade theories
postulate that free trade regimes have positive effects on bilateral trade. The justification is that regional trade
blocks decrease barriers to intraregional trade and hence, member countries are likely to expect some benefits.
Whether each member country actually benefits from such agreements is, however, a subject to debate and
empirical tests. The gravity model is used in this paper to assess the impact of the Greater Arab Free Trade
Agreement (GAFTA), particularly on the volume and pattern of bilateral agricultural trade during the period
between 1995 and 2007. Our results reveal that GAFTA did not have the desired effects on the intra-regional
volume of bilateral agricultural trade in four out of eight member countries selected for this study. The only
countries in the sample that exhibited positive effects in both the import and export sectors are Lebanon and
Syria. These findings uncover important facts that are hidden in the results of other studies, which concluded
that the GAFTA has led to an increase in total intra-regional volume of trade. The current study adds to the
literature by looking at the effects of the agreement on individual member countries’ bilateral trade rather than
the aggregate volume of intraregional trade.
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Yigezu, Yigezu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9156-7082
Aw-Hassan, Aden A. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9236-4949
Al-Shater, Tamer https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0698-689X
Aw-Hassan, Aden A. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9236-4949
Al-Shater, Tamer https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0698-689X