Long-Distance Industrial Policy for Africa Abstract

A central task of this paper is to understand both the boom and the bust and the continued impact of AGOA today, to understand prospects for extending or improving it. [...] Despite the demise of the AGOA boom of the early 2000, we find evidence that the answer to the first question is yes, AGOA still matters for African exports. [...] Turning to the post-treatment periods, as anticipated, the results imply a large and significant role for AGOA in boosting apparel exports in the early years of treatment. [...] Because our dependent variable is a share of GDP and the analysis is done at the country-product level, the boost to trade is computed as the sum of effects across all eligible products (562 apparel products under AGOA) and countries (36 AGOA countries in the latest period of our data). [...] Note: The value of the AGOA trade preference is calculated as the foregone tariffs, i.e., the dollar value of imports times the relevant tariff rate in the absence of any trade preferences.