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Effect of the Duty‐Free and Quota‐Free Market Access Schemes for Least Developed Countries on Income Inequality and Poverty
Author(s) -
Gnang Sèna Kimm
Publication year - 2025
Publication title -
the manchester school
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.361
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1467-9957
pISSN - 1463-6786
DOI - 10.1111/manc.12512
Subject(s) - poverty , inequality , economic inequality , economics , duty , free market , free access , demographic economics , market access , development economics , economic growth , mathematics , geography , computer science , political science , mathematical analysis , archaeology , politics , world wide web , law , agriculture
ABSTRACT This paper has examined whether the Duty‐Free and Quota‐Free (DFQF) market access preference schemes provided by Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to Least developed countries (LDCs) have been instrumental in reducing income inequality and poverty in these countries. The analysis has used the entropy balancing method over an unbalanced panel dataset of 36 LDCs (treatment group) and 19 countries in the control group, with data spanning the period 1997–2018. The feasible generalized least squares, the within fixed effects and the Seemingly Unrelated Regression estimators have been employed to address empirically the question. The analysis has established that the DFQF schemes have genuinely been instrumental in reducing income inequality and poverty in LDCs, including to a greater extent in non‐African LDCs than in African LDCs. These findings confirm the importance of the DFQF schemes for LDCs.