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The purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of the informal economy on bilateral exports in sub‐Saharan African countries. We use a gravity model, to which we add indicators of the informal economy and indicator variables for different economic regions. The study used Pseudo‐Poisson Maximum Likelihood (PPML) and Heckman estimation techniques on data from the period 2002–2018. The results show that the informal economy has a negative impact on bilateral inter‐community exports and a positive impact on bilateral intra‐community exports. These results thus support the idea that the informal economy can accelerate the integration of regional economic communities and ultimately facilitate the establishment of bilateral export free trade areas at the continental level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of the continental free trade area in Africa is an important step forward for the creation of a market of significant size in a context of sluggish job creation. This study examines the effects of intra‐African exports on aggregate and sectoral employment using the fixed‐effects model with Driscoll‐Kraay standard errors. The data covers 44 African countries over the period 1995–2018. The results show that intra‐African exports increase both sectoral and aggregate employment. Despite the marginal size of intra‐African trade, its effect on employment is greater than that of extra‐African exports. Our results also show that intra‐African exports of primary products create jobs in the agricultural sector, while its effect on employment in the two other sectors is not statistically significant. African countries should therefore increase employment through higher processing of primary products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this work was to analyse the effects of environmental quality and environmental regulations on the exports of sub‐Saharan African countries. Adopting the pollution haven hypothesis as a theoretical framework, we use a gravity model enriched by environmental variables. Our main results indicate that it is the environmental quality of sub‐Saharan African (SSA) countries, as measured by the Environmental Performance Index, and the differences in environmental quality between a country and its partner that constitute a barrier to SSA exports. It therefore appears important for SSA countries to integrate the environmental factor into their policies to improve the competitiveness of their exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]