Conclusion

than in the years following the end of the MFA quotas (figure 2.12, panel a). In contrast, for Southern Africa, the AGOA’s average impact on apparel exports is significantly higher in the early AGOA period, and it decreases after 2005—with the end of the MFA quotas—until it is not significantly different from zero (figure 2.12, panel c). Although the Southern African countries initially took advantage of the opportunities created by the AGOA, their apparel exports clearly suffered more after the end of the MFA quotas.

The decline in the AGOA’s impact in the face of increased competition from previously quota-constrained countries, such as China after 2005, suggests that the US trade preferences did not help the Southern African countries to build a durable comparative advantage in apparel exports. The results show patterns that are largely consistent with the four apparel stories emerging from the raw data on exports, as described earlier.

Conclusion

This chapter analyzed the impact on African exports of preferential access to the US market by exploiting a newly developed, disaggregated productlevel database. It focused mostly on apparel exports because the policy changes in that sector enable us to assess the durability of the impact of the preferences, by examining whether export gains survived the erosion of preferences. We carried out the analysis at two levels: the AGOA’s average impact on beneficiary countries and the heterogeneous effects across individual countries and subregions in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Average AGOA impact. We found that the average impact of the AGOA on beneficiary countries’ exports to the United States was significantly positive. Given our interest in the durability of the AGOA’s impact, we considered the differences across two periods: (a) after AGOA introduction, while African countries enjoyed high preference margins over other countries, especially the quota-constrained Asian countries (2001–04); and (b) after the MFA ended, which eroded the preference margins (2005–17).

The raw data paint a picture of a rapid increase in exports over the first period and then a decline over the second. The triple-differences regression, controlling for a wide range of other factors, confirmed the increase in exports over the first period but showed a leveling off—rather than a decline—of exports over the second period.

Heterogeneity by subregion. The subregion- and country-level performances revealed considerable heterogeneity behind the “average” performance over the two periods. Central and West Africa did not take any meaningful advantage of the opportunities offered by the AGOA. Southern Africa saw rapid growth in exports during the first period and then a rapid decline or stagnation in the second period. East Africa sustained export growth over the two periods.