Southern Africa Customs Union
BUSI604: International Business
Southern African Customs Union
KEY TERM and WHY YOU ARE INTERESTED IN IT
EXPLANATION OF THE KEY TERM
The Southern African Customs Union is an agreement between the nations of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland with the goal to maintain free interchange of goods between signatory nations and provide common external tariff and common excise tariff.
MAJOR ARTICLE SUMMARY
The article chosen to review is titled Integration among unequals: The Southern African Customs Union and Development by James H. Cobbe. Since this article was written several revisions to the South African Customs Union have occurred. However, Cobb reviewed the discussion in an issue of World Development where Mosely presented an assessment of the SACU which included a quantatative estimate of static gains and losses for Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland. In the article, three issues were listed in the agreements: revenue sharing, interaction between the operations of the Customs Union and the use of non-tariff measures of trade control, and effects of real income distributions of the acceptance of the South African relative price structure. At the time the article was written, Cobbe listed recommendations to the issues mentioned. Of those suggestions, radical change in policy was needed and radical change in South Africa or the SACU would not be advantageous for Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland. (Cobbe, 1980).
How the cited work relates to your above explanation AND how it relates specifically to the content of this module/week.
In a comment on Moseley’s reappraisal, Mosley concluded that Botswana and Lesotho would probably benefit from disengaging from the SACU was challenged by Landell-Mills. Landell-Mills stated that substantial data had been generated since Mosley calculations. Mosley’s...