74

A new dimension of international trade has appeared in recent decades with the awakening of South-South trade, mainly driven by China. The so-called “Chinese move into Africa” phenomenon is one of the main characteristics of this economic mutation. This paper aims at exploring the determinants of the upsurge of bilateral trade between sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and China, but with a special focus on the role of institutions. In this regard, we applied a theoretically consistent structural gravity model to a worldwide database covering the period 1996–2012. We built specific interaction variables to study how Sino-African trade is influenced by the institutional dimension of African countries, measured by both the type of political regime and the quality of governance. The main results indicate that in the context of China-SSA trade flows, a democratic regime is pro-trade, but surprisingly an improvement in control of corruption leads to a deterioration in trade. Accordingly, to the extent that institutional reforms take time to operate, trading with China could be an interesting medium-run opportunity for SSA to pursue its growth and development process. JEL classification codes: O55, F1, F14