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Cyprus and Malta into the EU, whereas the customs union agreement with Turkey (1996) is still in force. In addition to “vertical” bilateral trade liberalization with the EU the MENA countries are committed to implement “horizontal” trade liberalization among themselves. However, compared to the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreements trade liberalization between particular MENA countries is still far less advanced. Some doubts about the desirability of intra-MENA trade liberalization stem from the long history of failure in creating a well functioning plurilateral free trade agreement. Commonly mentioned examples of such failure stories include the Arab Common Market and other initiatives of the Arab League and the Council of Economic Unity, as well as various sub-regional arrangements such as among Maghreb countries, and many other trade agreements formed among countries of the MENA region. According to Nugent and Yousef (2005, p.1) “Not only have these special arrangements been far from fully realized, but also even normal trade among countries of the region has been periodically and unexpectedly interrupted by trade boycotts, ad hoc border closings and so on.” Given the lack of significant progress in liberalizing trade at the regional and subregional levels in the MENA region some countries located both in the Middle East and North Africa decided to liberalize their trade on bilateral basis. This led to the establishment of the grid of bilateral trade agreements by the end of the 1990s that prepared the ground for the Agadir Declaration signed in 2001 by the representatives of four MENA countries: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. The Agadir Declaration included a commitment to the establishment of a free trade area (FTA) between these countries that remained open onto other Arab countries. 22 In 2003 the four member countries of the Agadir group finalized the agreement on the establishment of a free trade area among themselves that would replace the existing bilateral trade agreements of the 1990s. The Agadir Agreement was signed in 2004 and was initially 22 Lebanon and Syria are currently in the process of negotiations to join the Agadir Organization. Other potential entrants include Algeria, Libya, Mauritania and the Palestinian Authority. 47
foreseen to take effect in 2005. However, it encountered delays in entering into force due to the slow ratification process by some countries and eventually came into force only in 2007. 23 The Agadir Agreement is seen as a stepping stone to the formation of a well functioning regional trade agreement that would complement on-going trade liberalization with the EU and eventually lead to the creation of the EUROMED. However, at this stage it is too early to evaluate its effectiveness. Nevertheless, it is possible to evaluate empirically at least the effectiveness of those bilateral trade agreements concluded among the MENA countries in the late 1990s that later laid the foundations for the Agadir Agreement. The effectiveness of these bilateral agreements has been frequently questioned in the literature but to the best of our knowledge there were no previous formal attempts to verify their effectiveness empirically. Therefore, in addition to studying the effectiveness of the Euro- Mediterranean Association Agreements we also study the effectiveness of bilateral trade agreements of the particular Agadir countries to check whether these claims are really justified. Other agreements by MENA countries Most MENA countries in addition to the EU Association Agreements concluded at about the same time also free trade agreements with the EFTA countries that along with the EU form the European Economic Area since 1994. The EFTA agreements with the MENA countries that were in force during the period covered by our sample include Turkey (1992), Israel 23 The declared goals of the Agadir Agreement in addition to the elimination of tariffs include also harmonization of laws in economic matters and coordination of sectoral and global economic policies, especially in the fields of international trade, agriculture, industry, finance, taxes and customs. A key element of the Agadir Agreement is the adoption of the Euro-Mediterranean Protocol on the rules of origin that allow MENA countries to benefit from diagonal cumulation of value added. In contrast to the US rules of origin that consider value added domestically in the country that exports to the US this means that it turns the blind eye to where value was added for the purpose of preferential tariffs as long as it was in an FTA partner country. These conflicting regimes give the EU an advantage in its competition with the US to a secure the Euro-Mediterranean FTA as a counter force to the US-Middle East FTA. 48
Page 1 and 2: In collaboration with: F E M I S E
Page 3 and 4: Table of contents INTRODUCTION AND
Page 5 and 6: Introduction and summary In the pro
Page 7 and 8: that of the NMS, we would observe a
Page 9 and 10: accession to the EU. Instead, a num
Page 11 and 12: trade area (FTA). The Agadir Agreem
Page 13 and 14: liberalization has taken five years
Page 15 and 16: signed Europe Agreements, EFTA and
Page 17 and 18: used as industry organization varia
Page 19 and 20: The main goal of the project was to
Page 21 and 22: Chapter 1: Assessing trade liberali
Page 23 and 24: Agricultural Policy (CAP). Further
Page 25 and 26: Agreements concluded with the MPCs.
Page 27 and 28: n lnTijt = ∑ k= 1 β RTAijt + α1
Page 29 and 30: Preferential trade liberalization i
Page 31 and 32: the EU enlargement, the EFTA lost t
Page 33 and 34: The most important of these was the
Page 35 and 36: The Definitions of the Variables an
Page 37 and 38: Estimates for the whole CEE sample
Page 39 and 40: agreements is, however, mixed. Whil
Page 41 and 42: The OLS estimates suggest that both
Page 43 and 44: Czech Republic Estonia Hungary Lith
Page 45 and 46: Czech Slovak Republic Estonia Hunga
Page 47: products. The provisions of the Eur
Page 51 and 52: Similar to the AMU, the ACC was for
Page 53 and 54: Unfortunately, the data on capital
Page 55 and 56: Table 2. The estimates for bilatera
Page 57 and 58: obust, while the dummy variable for
Page 59 and 60: Yi (partner) 0.944 1.009 2.267 1.96
Page 65 and 66: Agreements on the third countries a
Page 67 and 68: Chapter 2: Grossman-Helpman Model I
Page 69 and 70: N function (U ), given by: + ( ) u
Page 71 and 72: ti 1+ ti xi Ii −α i mi = ⋅ ,
Page 73 and 74: Probably the most extensive list of
Page 75 and 76: eginning of 1990. But the tariff st
Page 77 and 78: The non-preferential (MFN, conventi
Page 79 and 80: have important impact on political
Page 81 and 82: xi where ti is the tariff, ei is th
Page 83 and 84: We can recover the structural param
Page 85 and 86: Appendix Table 2 Estimation results
Page 87 and 88: Table 4 Estimation results using mo
Page 89 and 90: Testing Grossman-Helpman model for
Page 91 and 92: practice most importers do not pay
Page 93 and 94: countries were traditionally subjec
Page 95 and 96: point to notify the US government o
Page 97 and 98: and between 157% and 247% in 2004.
Page 99 and 100:
policy reforms. On the other hand i
Page 101 and 102:
Table 1 Estimation results for Isra
Page 103 and 104:
1995 0.00202 [2.04]** -0.00199 [2.0
Page 105 and 106:
extended to disaggregation of burea
Page 107 and 108:
The Importance of Corruption A subs
Page 109 and 110:
transition countries. Sekkat and Ve
Page 111 and 112:
society. In addition, they show tha
Page 113 and 114:
Johnson, Kaufmann, McMillan, and Wo
Page 115 and 116:
corruption. For example, upon grant
Page 117 and 118:
and criminal prosecution. On the ot
Page 119 and 120:
estimation are likely to be influen
Page 121 and 122:
levels have been used to derive fur
Page 123 and 124:
Union. In fact, the level of regula
Page 125 and 126:
Table 2 List of the Commonly Raised
Page 127 and 128:
Table 6 Predicted improvement (show
Page 129 and 130:
SB_PR all procedures required to re
Page 131 and 132:
AFGHANISTAN, ALBANIA, ALGERIA, ANGO
Page 133 and 134:
Brunetti, Aymo; Kisunko, Gregory an
Page 135 and 136:
Hines, J.R. (1995). Forbidden Payme
Page 137 and 138:
PellegriniI, Lorenzo and Gerlagh, R
Page 139:
World Bank (2005). Doing Business i
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