Does OIC Membership Reduce Trade?
The OIC member countries’ shares of world exports and imports are small. Given the positive relation among trade, economic growth, and development, this paper analyzes the effects of being a member of the OIC on trade with OIC and non-OIC member countries. The “traditional” and “theoretical” augmented gravity models of international trade are used, and the effects of OIC membership are measured as a residual after taking into account large differences in culture, history, geography, participation in international and regional organizations, incidences of conflict, and institutional and governance quality of the countries. We show that by using the traditional gravity model, the effects of OIC membership are found to be negative, but the theoretical model suggests a positive or non-significant OIC effects.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Journal of Economic Cooperation Among Islamic Countries is the property of Statistical Economic and Social Research &Training Centre for Islamic Co
