Aid for trade and export diversification in recipient-countries

The Aid-for-Trade (AfT) Initiative was launched by the Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with a view to helping developing countries and the least-developed countries (LDCs) expand their trade. The current paper contributes to the literature on AfT effectiveness by examining how AfT affects recipient-countries' export product diversification. The analysis has been carried out on a sample of 104 AfT recipient-countries over the period 2002-2015 and uses the two-step system generalised methods of moments (GMM) approach. Results show that AfT flows are conducive to export product diversification in recipient-countries. In addition, the analysis has shown a positive impact of the cumulative AfT flows on the export product diversification path of these countries. These results apply as well to the subsamples of LDCs and other developing countries. One policy implication of these results is that a scale-up of AfT would help recipient-countries to diversify their export products baskets and hence facilitate their greater integration into the global trading system.