Mélise Jaud

Financial Development and Survival of African Agri-Food Exports

This paper investigates the link between export survival of agri-food products and financial development. It tests the hypothesis that financial development differentially affects the survival of exports across products based on their need of external finance. The authors test whether exports of products that are relatively more reliant on external capital survive longer when initiated in more financially developed countries. The results suggest that agri-food products that require more external finance indeed sustain longer in foreign markets if the exporting country is more financially developed.

Regime Change, Democracy and Growth

Theory and empirics are ambiguous on the effect of democracy on growth. Cross-country studies find that democracy has no significant impact on growth. In contrast, within-country studies find a strong positive effect of transition to democracy. We reconcile this inconsistency by showing that the positive effect of political transition is a result of swift regime change and not democratization. We identify and examine 90 successful, failed, and gradual transitions that have occurred over the last half century. This new classification permits us to compare successful episodes of democratization with unsuccessful ones -- as opposed to with the counterfactual of no transition. We find that both successful and failed transitions boost long-run growth by about one percentage point, but gradual change is quite costly in economic terms. The results imply that the growth dividend from political transition is a result of regime change and not democratization, and also offer new evidence on the importance of the speed of transition for economic growth. The results are robust to a number of alternative specifications, to stricter and more lenient definitions of democratic transition, and to including reverse transitions.

Financial Development and Sustainable Exports: Evidence from Firm‐Product Data

We combine a novel measure of export-related financial needs at the product level with a unique database of firm-product export data from five developing countries. Using the tools of survival analysis and controlling for firm and products fixed effects, we then examine the impact of financial development on the long-term trade. Finance matters for sustainable export performance, as goods with higher export-related financial needs disproportionately benefit from better financial development. Our results complement existing literature on finance and trade, which has relied on production-based measures of financial dependence at the industry or firm level.

Champions wanted : promoting exports in the Middle East and North Africa

While other emerging regions were thriving, MENAs aggregate export performance over the past two decades has been consistently weak. Using detailed firm-level export data from Customs administrations, this report explains why. One central finding is that the size distribution of MENAs exporting firms is suggestive of a critical weakness at the top. With the exception of the top firm, MENAs elite exporters are smaller and weaker compared to their peers in other regions. The largest exporter is alone at the top-Zidane without a team. MENA countries have failed to nurture a group of export superstars which critically contribute to export success in other regions. Part of the reason behind weak export performance is the lack of a competitive real exchange rate. The deleterious effects of an uncompetitive currency can be traced all the way down to the firm, hurting expansion at the intensive and extensive margin and preventing the emergence of export take-offs. The lack of heavy weight exporters at the top of the distribution also reflects the regions failure to push for trade and business climate reforms energetically. Finally, MENAs prevalent cronyism and corruption under pre-Arab Spring regimes (at least) confirms that business-government ties led to distortionary allocation of favors and rent dissipation by beneficiary firms, with little evidence that those firms developed into national champions or helped lift the regions export performance. The possibility of state capture in itself should call for caution when advocating any form of government intervention. In contrast, some interventions, like export promotion programs show effects on small exporters. However, because these firms are marginal in trade, such programs cannot be game changers. More broadly, the success of MENA countries in promoting export growth and diversification as well as generating jobs depends heavily on their ability to create an environment where large firms can invest and expand exports and new, efficient firms can rise to the top.

On the Determinants of Democratic Transitions

90 countries have changed regimes in the last half century. Of these, 46% experienced a successful transition to democracy, 39% failed, and 15% moved gradually to democracy. In this paper, we explore the initial conditions associated with transition and with its success. We find that gender equality, natural resources, conflict, a military government, and urbanization significantly affect the likelihood of regime change and the durability of democracy. Contagion effects from experiences in neighboring countries are also important determinants of success. The results offer insights into what we can expect from the ongoing transitions in the Middle East and North Africa.

Finance and Export Survival: The Case of MENA Region and Sub-Saharan Africa

The paper looks at unique product-firm data collected by custom authorities in four countries from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) -- Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Yemen as well as in six countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) -- Ghana, Mali, Malawi, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda. We use this data to examine the impact of financial development on the long-term success of exports from developing countries. We find that those agricultural exports that face particularly costly implementation of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards (SPS) are also the ones that disproportionately benefit from a higher level of domestic financial development. This result confirms the previous findings from a smaller SSA sample (Jaud et al. 2013). It is robustly controlling for heterogeneity at firm and product level as well as for controlling for alternative channels that could shape the relation between finance and international trade in the data.

Transition Experiences: A Statistical Analysis

In 2011, the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen toppled autocratic regimes that had governed these nations for decades. The revolutions brought hope for democracy and prosperity in these countries, with more voice for the citizens, accountability of the government, and more opportunities for the youth. Completing the transition to democratic rule has proven more difficult than initially envisioned, as the elections in Egypt and Tunisia resulted in only short-lived governments. Meanwhile unrest has spread rapidly in Libya and Yemen, while Syria descended into civil war as the opposition failed to remove the long-term dictator. In contrast, the Kingdoms of Jordan and Morocco responded to demands for change with partial reform, resulting in less unrest and more consistent economic growth.