North-south trade: Is Africa unusual?

We estimate a gravity model to address the question of whether Africa's bil ateral trade with industrial countries is 'unusual' compared with other dev eloping country regions. Our main finding is that the unusually low level o f African trade is explained by economic size, geographical distance and po pulation. This result holds after controlling for a country's access to the sera, composition of exports, linguistic ties with industrial countries ra nd trade policies. If anything, the average African country tends to 'overt rade' compared with developing countries in other regions, although the deg ree to which Africa overtrades has steadily declined over the past two-and- one-half decades.