Title: Gulf Cooperation Council trade integration: a new empirical examination

Authors: Walid Abdmoulah

Addresses: Arab Planning Institute, Kuwait, P.O. Box 5834, Safat 13059, Kuwait

Abstract: This paper investigates GCC countries| trade integration. The gravity equation is estimated using Panel Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial specification and COMTRADE aggregate and disaggregated flows. Results confirm GCC countries| integration deficit on exports side, while being integrated to some extent on imports side and on some particular commodities. Moreover, economic size and distance differently affect trade according to its direction and the nature of goods. Finally, two major obstacles to integration are highlighted: ?Limited trade complementarity induced by excess reliance on oil and lagged industrialisation. ?Intensive trade with industrialised and some developing countries at the expense of GCC countries.

Keywords: GCC; Gulf Cooperation Council; Arab States; CCASG; Persian Gulf; Arabian Peninsula; Bahrain; Kuwait; Oman; Qatar; Saudi Arabia; United Arab Emirates; intra-regional trade; gravity models; panel models; zero-inflated models; negative binomial models; COMTRADE; UN; United Nations; commodity trade statistics; statistical databases; aggregate flows; disaggregated flows; integration deficits; exports; imports; economic size; economic distance; trade complementarity; oil; lagged industrialisation; intensive trade; industrialised countries; developing countries; globalisation; global markets.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTGM.2011.042863

International Journal of Trade and Global Markets, 2011 Vol.4 No.4, pp.383 - 404

Received: 13 Oct 2010
Accepted: 24 Nov 2010

Published online: 08 Apr 2015 *

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