Credible Government Commitments to Trade Policy Certainty, Agricultural Transformation, and Employment Quality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from the WTO Information Technology Agreement

This article examines how governments' commitment to trade policy certainty over information technology (IT) products relates to agricultural transformation and employment quality in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. The analysis uses membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO)'s Information Technology Agreement (ITA) as a proxy for governments' commitment to maintaining a stable and predictable trade policy environment for high-IT products. The results suggest that SSA countries could have achieved higher levels of agricultural transformation and better employment quality, reflected in lower vulnerable employment and working poverty rates and higher wage employment, if their governments had strengthened trade policy certainty over IT products, including through participation in the ITA. The findings further indicate that the high dependence of public revenue on trade taxes helps explain why many SSA governments have not joined the ITA. Consequently, reforms aimed at strengthening domestic revenue mobilization could provide governments with greater incentives to enhance trade policy certainty over high-IT products and thereby support agricultural transformation and improvements in employment quality.