Egypt: The Environment For Adjustment To Trade Liberalization

Abstract

This paper investigated the potential effect of market failures in labor and capital markets in addition to market failure due to high transaction costs on the transitional path to trade liberalization. All three types of market failure were found to reduce the speed of adjustment to free trade and contribute to high adjustment costs. The paper also examined the consistency of the macroeconomic environment with the objectives of trade liberalization. It is postulated that a macroeconomic environment that is basically recessionary is likely to lead to high adjustment costs.