TY - CEPII
A1 - Cristina Mitaritonna
A1 - Sami Bensassi
A1 - Joachim Jarreau
TI - Regional Integration and Informal Trade in Africa: Evidence from Benin's Borders
IS - 2017-21
T3 - Working Papers
KW - Informal Trade
KW - Regional Integration
KW - Trade Facilitation
KW - Evasion
KW - Africa
N2 - Regional trade is low in sub-saharan Africa. But a large share of regional trade is informal, i.e. not recorded in offcial data. This paper studies the relationship between trade barriers and informality of trade. We use an original survey of informal transactions across Benin's land borders, which provides the first direct and comprehensive account of trade volumes and product coverage for this type of trade. We combine this data with official trade records and exploit variation across products and countries to measure the impact of tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade on informality. Increasing tariffs on a given product by 10% makes it about 12% more likely that this product is imported informally rather than formally. Non-tariff measures also increase informality. Our results also suggest that compliance costs, aside from tariffs and regulations, contribute to explain informality.
ER -