28:T4a8,

The main raison d’être of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Free Trade Area (FTA) implemented in 2012 was to inter alia boost intra-regional trade and promote regional trade integration. The low levels of growth and mixed trade performance of countries, eight years after, raises questions about the success of the FTA. The success of the recently launched African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) partly hinges on the performance of the regional FTAs like the SADC FTA. This is because it is unlikely that the African Union through the AfCFTA will achieve continentally what regional economic communities failed to achieve at the regional level. We use a gravity model as well as the difference in difference estimator to evaluate, ex-post, the impact of the SADC FTA on total and sectoral intra-exports. Using data from 2001 to 2019, results show that the full implementation of the SADC FTA did not significantly affect export performance with the export difference between countries that joined the FTA and those that did not being insignificant. These results do not change even when using sectoral exports.

JEL Codes: F1, F13, F14, F15

29:T469,

This study examines the relationship between globalisation and inclusive growth by considering the modulating role of institutional quality. To achieve our broad objective, we use data from 45 African economies over 1996–2018 to determine the panel cointegration and cointegrating regression association between inclusive growth, globalisation and institutional quality. To determine a suitable estimation technique for the empirical analysis, several pre-estimation tests were conducted. After confirming the existence of cointegration and slope heterogeneity, we adapted the long-run panel cointegrating methods—the fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares estimations. The results from both show that aggregate globalisation and its various dimensions have positive and significant effects on inclusive growth. Besides the direct positive impact on inclusive growth, globalisation has indirect positive and significant impact on inclusive growth through institutional quality. Finally, some policy implications are highlighted.

JEL Codes: E02, F62, F63, O15, O43

2a:T48c,

The gravity model of trade (GMoT) has become popular among practitioners and academics lately, essentially because of its power to provide a comprehensive explanation of real-world trade data. Complementing this are Viner’s concepts of trade creation (TC) and trade diversion (TD), which have been crucial in the development of a conceptual framework for evaluating the trade implications of a trade agreement. This article attempts to conduct a bibliometric analysis for estimating TC and TD using the GoMT. It has been observed that the TC and TD estimations following the use of the GoMT are few. Additionally, TC and TD estimations for free trade agreements (FTA) have been conducted, but not so much for regional trade agreements (RTA). As a result, a broad range of research can be conducted, especially given the recent dynamic environment for new RTAs. A bibliometric analysis was undertaken to evaluate the current level of research on GMoT. The search was conducted through Scopus where 648 documents were retrieved and examined. The article indicates key findings and discusses future research prospects.

JEL: F10, F13, F14