Why can’t MENA countries trade more?: The curse of bad institutions

This paper explores the relationship between institutions and trade in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The literature offers a broad consensus that bad institutions hamper trade and that trade liberalization engenders institutional reforms; however, MENA has generally been neglected...

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Autores principales: Karam, Fida, Zaki, Chahir
Formato: Artículo preliminar
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: International Food Policy Research Institute 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/148637
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author Karam, Fida
Zaki, Chahir
author_browse Karam, Fida
Zaki, Chahir
author_facet Karam, Fida
Zaki, Chahir
author_sort Karam, Fida
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description This paper explores the relationship between institutions and trade in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The literature offers a broad consensus that bad institutions hamper trade and that trade liberalization engenders institutional reforms; however, MENA has generally been neglected in this literature, even though most countries in the region suffer from a clear deficit of “good” institutions. Taking into account the inverse relationship between institutions and trade, we use a gravity model that explains bilateral trade for disaggregated goods and service sectors for 21 MENA countries over the period 1995-2014. Our results show that in the presence of excessive zero trade observations, poor institutions can be considered as fixed export costs that help explain the zero probability of trade for some countries. We find that institutions do matter for trade after controlling for the endogeneity problem between institutions and trade.
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spelling CGSpace1486372025-11-06T05:40:46Z Why can’t MENA countries trade more?: The curse of bad institutions Karam, Fida Zaki, Chahir exports institutions trade policies trade governance This paper explores the relationship between institutions and trade in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The literature offers a broad consensus that bad institutions hamper trade and that trade liberalization engenders institutional reforms; however, MENA has generally been neglected in this literature, even though most countries in the region suffer from a clear deficit of “good” institutions. Taking into account the inverse relationship between institutions and trade, we use a gravity model that explains bilateral trade for disaggregated goods and service sectors for 21 MENA countries over the period 1995-2014. Our results show that in the presence of excessive zero trade observations, poor institutions can be considered as fixed export costs that help explain the zero probability of trade for some countries. We find that institutions do matter for trade after controlling for the endogeneity problem between institutions and trade. 2017 2024-06-21T09:25:17Z 2024-06-21T09:25:17Z Working Paper https://hdl.handle.net/10568/148637 en application/pdf International Food Policy Research Institute Karam, Fida; and Zaki, Chahir. 2017. Why can’t MENA countries trade more? The curse of bad institutions. AGRODEP Working Paper 0037. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/148637
spellingShingle exports
institutions
trade policies
trade
governance
Karam, Fida
Zaki, Chahir
Why can’t MENA countries trade more?: The curse of bad institutions
title Why can’t MENA countries trade more?: The curse of bad institutions
title_full Why can’t MENA countries trade more?: The curse of bad institutions
title_fullStr Why can’t MENA countries trade more?: The curse of bad institutions
title_full_unstemmed Why can’t MENA countries trade more?: The curse of bad institutions
title_short Why can’t MENA countries trade more?: The curse of bad institutions
title_sort why can t mena countries trade more the curse of bad institutions
topic exports
institutions
trade policies
trade
governance
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/148637
work_keys_str_mv AT karamfida whycantmenacountriestrademorethecurseofbadinstitutions
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