OCA Theory

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in currency unions internationally. The formation of currency union in Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has drawn much attention of Islamic countries. This paper aims to investigate the effect of currency union formation for trade among 49 Islamic countries over the period 1990-2012 by OCA and Augmented Gravity Model (AGM). The results show that common language, borders, and trade unions had positive and significant effect on trade in OIC countries; and being landlocked and distance between source and host countries had negative and significant effect on bilateral trade. Also, the currency union had positive and significant effects on trade in OIC countries. The evidence thus suggests that regional currency union arrangements stimulate bilateral trade in OIC rigorously. JEL Classification: F47, E49

Several political and economic factors are involved in choosing exchange rate policy in Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries. In the present study, these factors have been investigated with an emphasis on OCA and political economic factors during 1990 -2014. The result shows that OCA and political economic factors as well as tradable sector are influential on exchange rate policy in OIC countries. In a way that oil revenue, financial development, GDP, openness of the economy, economic development and political instability all tend to increase the probability of pegging the exchange rate regimes, whereas an increasing industrial sector and size of the economy lead to a decrease in the probability of pegging the exchange rate regimes. Inflation, democracy, political system, legislative system, and monetary crises had no significant effect on the exchange rate regime. Also, the results show that the democracy and oil revenue had the highest impact on choosing exchange rate regime and financial development and monetary crises risk had the least impact on choosing exchange rate regime. JEL Classification: F31, C01