Do EPAs promote industrial trade? : evidence from the share of African manufactured exports to the EU

Sammanfattning

The EU and African countries have implemented Economic Partnership Agreements since the beginning of the 2010s with the purpose of integrating Africa into the world market and contribute to economic growth. However, African countries exports are still dominated by primary goods. This thesis aims to investigate if these trade agreements affect the share of manufactured exports from African countries to the EU. To analyze this a staggered Difference-in-Difference is implemented using panel data for 45 African countries over 23 years. The results show no statistically significant overall effect, indicating that the agreements did not promote industrial trade. However, heterogeneity can be seen across different cohorts, suggesting that effects of EPAs vary across countries. Negative effects, indicating a decrease in the share of manufactured exports following EPAs, can be seen for cohort 2012 and 2019. The event study estimates further indicate that some negative effects may strengthen in later post-treatment periods.