What Constrains Africa's Exports?
This paper examines the effects of transit, documentation, and ports and customs delays on Africa s exports. The authors find that transit delays have the most economically and statically significant effect on exports. A one-day reduction in inlan...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2010/01/11692475/constrains-africas-exports http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19862 |
| Summary: | This paper examines the effects of
transit, documentation, and ports and customs delays on
Africa s exports. The authors find that transit delays have
the most economically and statically significant effect on
exports. A one-day reduction in inland travel times leads
to a 7 percent increase in exports. Put another way, a
one-day reduction in inland travel times translates to a 1.5
percentage point decrease in all importing-country tariffs.
By contrast, longer delays in the other areas have a far
smaller impact on trade. The analysis controls for the
possibility that greater trade leads to shorter delays in
three ways. First, it examines the effect of trade times on
exports of new products. Second, it evaluates the effect of
delays in a transit country on the exports of landlocked
countries. Third, it examines whether delays affect
time-sensitive goods relatively more. The authors show that
large transit delays are relatively more harmful because of
high within-country variation. |
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