It is a pleasure for Monarch to announce that Dr. Iqbal has recently published a paper on African Trade Blocks and the Global Economy. You may find the link to the article below. The article is entitled “An empirical analysis of African trade blocs effects on the global economy: new evidence from the gravity model”, published by SpringerOpen in the Future Business Journal. We congratulate him again and look forward to more articles to come.?
View The Article Here
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ABSTRACT
This study employs the gravity model to estimate the extent of the contribution of six African trade blocs to the global economy using the gravity model spanning from 1980 to 2018. The gravity equation that models the export contributions of the six selected African RECs to the global export is estimated. The estimated gravity model reveals that the long run estimations show that the coefficient estimate for SACU and ECCAS are insignificant in the long run while SACU, EAC and ECCAS as RECs, have insignificant contribution to export in the short run. Our findings, after establishing cointegration, on the other hand show that COMESA has the highest contribution to the global exports, followed by EAC, ECOWAS and SADC with ECCAS and SACU the lowest contributors. The highest contribution of COMESA followed by EAC may be due to the growing economy of member countries like Kenya and Rwanda, while that of COMESA and SADC may be as a result of the large economy of Nigeria and South Africa respectively. This study concludes that African countries are emerging with great export potentials, therefore, governments and private sec? tors should create the necessary incentives and export policies for the realization of these potentials to maximise the global value chain.
Dr. Badar Iqbal
Dr. Badar Alam Iqbal holds the position of Adjunct Professor of Economics and Finance at Monarch Business School Switzerland. He holds a PhD, DBA, M.Comm. and BA Honours from the Indian International University-Aligarh Muslim University. He has served the Central Bank of India and the Government of India as a Research Professor. Dr. Iqbal is the recipient of 12 global competitive fellowships. Dr. Iqbal?s teaching and research areas include International Economics, Development Economics, International Business and International Human Resource Management. Prof. Iqbal had been a Visiting Professor at Claflin University, Kentucky State University, Rennes University of France, The Institute of Developing Economies in Tokyo, The University of South Africa, Vaal University of Technology in South Africa, Maranga University of Brazil, Beijing Institute of Technology, The University of Warsaw, The German Institute for Economic Research, The Kiel Institute of World Economics, and The South Asia Institute in Heidelberg, Germany. He has also been affiliated to Nelson Mandela University, the Uganda Management Institute and The University of Cape Coast.
