The Impact of Trade Liberalization on the Export of MENA Countries to OECD Trade Partners

Trade performance of The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions has been dismally progressed. In the period of 20002009, to remove obstacles on the trade, most of the MENA countries have pursued the trade liberalization policy which consists of free trade agreements and WTO membership. This study employs on panel gravity model to examine the effect of trade liberalization policy on the export of 13 MENA countries to 30 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) trading partners. By using alternative estimators to take the zero trade problem and endogeneity problem into account, this study finds that whereas WTO membership negatively affects the export of MENA countries, free trade agreements have a positive impact on the export of those countries. So trade liberalization via free trade agreement may be a useful policy to increase export of MENA countries (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.