Export Diversification Effects of Aid for Trade Facilitation
Abstract
Improving developing countries' export performance is a current policy priority, and the
initiative Aid for Trade (AfT) has become an increasingly popular concept as a response
to this. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the relatively scarce evidence of its
impact on export diversifcation. The few studies that evaluate the effect of AfT on export
diversifcation do so using aggregate categorizations of AfT, thus unable to account for
heterogeneous effects of distinct aid ows. Relating to previous research on the effects of
reduced trade costs on export diversifcation, this thesis instead applies a more disaggregated
approach. We evaluate the impact of AfT facilitation, a category of AfT aimed at lowering
trade costs and simplifying trade procedures, and hypothesize it increases the number of
exported product categories. Using panel data in a GMM model, our results provide support
for the hypothesis. We find that the impact is stronger when leaving out the bottom
quarter in terms of cumulative AfT facilitation per capita over the study period, suggesting
a threshold effect for AfT facilitation to become effective.
Degree
Master 2-years
Other description
MSc in Economics
Collections
View/ Open
Date
2020-07-10Author
Hellgren, Joel
Klingvall, Hilda
Series/Report no.
Master Degree Project
Report nr:2020:159
Language
eng