Effects of Exchange Rate Arrangements on Regional Trade Cooperation in Selected Islamic Countries (GMM System)

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of imposing exchange rate arrangements on trading volume of regional trade cooperation in selected Islamic countries. Countries examined in this study, are ECO, GCC and D-8, consists of 26 countries during the years 2001-2012 using the generalized gravity model and a two-step system of generalized method of moments (GMM). The results show that applying different exchange rate arrangements has had significant influence on imports, so that in D-8 and ECO countries, free floating exchange rate arrangements with coefficients of 1.03 and 13.7 have had the greatest impacts on import. In GCC group, pegged arrangements with coefficient of 1.39 have had a significant and positive impact on the volume of bilateral trade between members.