ABSTRACT
Trade liberalisation, the removal of restrictions on imports and reduction of discrimination against exports, has been an important element of World Bank structural adjustment programmes (SAPs). Almost all countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have implemented some degree of trade liberalisation as part of an SAP since 1980. The success of the many liberalisation episodes has been mixed. Furthermore, evaluating the impact of trade reforms has been made more difficult by the fact that other economic reforms were normally attempted at the same time (see Corbo et al., 1992; Greenaway and Morrissey, 1993, 1994; McGillivray and Morrissey, 1999; Mosley et al., 1991; Papageorgiou et al., 1991).
