Trade Reform and Poverty in the Philippines: a Computable General Equilibrium Microsimulation Analysis

The paper employs an integrated CGE-microsimulation approach to analyze the poverty effects of tariff reduction. The results indicate that the tariff cuts implemented between 1994 and 2000 were generally poverty-reducing, primarily through the substantial reduction in consumer prices they engendered. However, the reduction is much greater in the National Capital Region (NCR), where poverty incidence is already lowest, than in other areas, especially rural, where poverty incidence is highest. Tariff cuts lower the cost of local production and bring about real exchange rate depreciation. Since the non-food manufacturing sector dominates exports in terms of export share and export intensity, the general equilibrium effects of tariff reduction is an expansion of this sector and a contraction in the agricultural sector. This, in turn, leads to an increase in the relative returns to factors, such as capital, used intensively in the non-food manufacturing sector and a fall in returns to unskilled labor. As rural households depend more on unskilled labor income, income inequality worsens as a result.Dynamic CGE model, trade liberalisation, poverty, inequality, Senegal

Doha Scenarios, Trade Reforms, and Poverty inthe Philippines: a CGE Analysis

Since the early 1980s, the Philippines have undertaken substantial trade reform. The current Doha round of WTO negotiations is now likely to bring further reform and shocks to world import and export prices and world export demand. The impact of all these developments on the poor is not very clear and is the subject of very intense debate. A detailed economy-wide CGE model is used to run a series of policy experiments. Poverty is found to increase slightly with the implementation of the Doha scenario. These effects are focused primarily among rural households in the wake of falling world prices and demand for Philippines agricultural exports. The impacts of full liberalization involving free world trade and complete domestic liberalization are found to depend strongly on the mechanism the government adopts to offset forgone tariff revenue. If an indirect tax is used, the incidence of poverty falls marginally, but the depth (poverty gap) and severity (squared poverty gap) increase substantially. If, instead, an income tax is used, all measures of poverty increase. In both cases, full liberalization favors urban households, as exports, which are primarily non-agricultural, expand. In separate simulations, we discover that free world trade is poverty reducing and favors rural households, whereas domestic liberalization is poverty-increasing and favors urban households. Under free world trade, rural households benefit from increasing world agricultural export prices and demand. The anti-rural bias of domestic liberalization stems from the fact that import prices fall more for agricultural goods than for industrial goods, as initial import-weighted average tariffs rates are higher for the former. In conclusion, the current Doha agreement appears likely to slightly increase poverty, especially in rural areas and among the unemployed, self-employed and rural low-educated. The Philippines is found to have an interest in pushing for more ambitious world trade liberalization, as free world trade holds out promise for reducing poverty.Computable General Equilibrium, Microsimulation, Poverty, International Trade, Philippines

Doha scenarios, trade reforms, and poverty in the Philippines : a computable general equilibrium analysis

Since the early 1980s the Philippines has undertaken substantial trade reform. The current Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations is now likely to bring further reform and shocks to world import prices and export demand. The impact of all these developments on the poor is not very clear and is the subject of intense debate. The authors use a detailed economywide computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to run a series of policy experiments. They find that poverty increases slightly with the implementation of the prospective Doha scenario. These effects are focused primarily among rural households in the wake of falling world prices and demand for the Philippines'agricultural exports. The authors find that the impacts of full liberalization-involving free world trade and complete domestic liberalization-depend strongly on the mechanism the government adopts to offset forgone tariff revenue. If an indirect tax is used, the incidence of poverty falls marginally, but the depth (poverty gap) and severity (squared poverty gap) increase substantially. If, instead, an income tax is used, all measures of poverty increase. In both cases, full liberalization favors urban households, as exports, which are primarily nonagricultural, expand. In separate simulations, the authors discover that free world trade is poverty reducing and favors rural households, whereas domestic liberalization is poverty increasing and favors urban households. Under free world trade, rural households benefit from increasing world agricultural demand. The anti-rural bias of domestic liberalization stems from the fact that import prices fall more for agricultural goods than for industrial goods, as initial import-weighted average tariff rates are higher for the former. In conclusion, the current Doha agreement appears likely to slightly increase poverty, especially in rural areas and among the unemployed, self-employed, and rural low-educated. The Philippines is found to have an interest in pushing for more ambitious world trade liberalization, as free world trade holds out promise for reducing poverty.

Doha scenarios, trade reforms, and poverty in the Philippines

"The paper examines the possible impact of Doha agreement on Philippine poverty. Using a detailed CGE analysis, the agreement is observed to depress world demand for Philippine agricultural exports, and thus slightly increase poverty, especially among rural households. However, an ambitious full trade liberalization scenario, which involves free world trade and domestic liberalization, leads to increased industrial exports that favor urban households. These impacts are driven primarily by domestic trade liberalization, as free world trade favors the agricultural sector by increasing the cost of competing agricultural imports." Authors' AbstractDoha agreement ,Computable general equilibrium (CGE) ,Free trade ,

Agricultural Price Distortions, Poverty and Inequality in the Philippines

This paper analyzes the poverty and inequality implications of removing agricultural and non-agricultural price distortions in the domestic market of the Philippines and abroad. Liberalization in the rest of the world is poverty and inequality reducing, whereas full domestic liberalization increases national poverty and inequality. Poverty declines while inequality increases marginally in the combined scenario of both global and domestic agriculture reform. Although the reduction in the national poverty headcount is small in the latter scenario, the poorest of the poor – particularly those living in the rural areas – emerge as “winners”, given their strong reliance on agricultural production and unskilled labor wages.Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18,

Ascospore release and survival in Sclerotinia sclerotiorum

The release and survival of ascospores of a UK Sclerotinia sclerotiorum isolate were studied. Apothecia placed in a spore clock apparatus with different lighting regimes at 15 °C released ascospores continuously with an increasing rate for the duration of experiments (72–84 h). Spore release was not confined to light or dark periods in alternating regimes and occurred in continuous dark or light. Ascospores were released in both saturated air (90–95% rh) and at 65–75% rh. High temperature and rh were detrimental to ascospore survival but spore viability was maintained for longer periods than previously reported. The significance of these results in relation to disease control is discussed

Lunar lander conceptual design

A conceptual design is presented of a Lunar Lander, which can be the primary vehicle to transport the equipment necessary to establish a surface lunar base, the crew that will man the base, and the raw materials which the Lunar Station will process. A Lunar Lander will be needed to operate in the regime between the lunar surface and low lunar orbit (LLO), up to 200 km. This lander is intended for the establishment and operation of a manned surface base on the moon and for the support of the Lunar Space Station. The lander will be able to fulfill the requirements of 3 basic missions: A mission dedicated to delivering maximum payload for setting up the initial lunar base; Multiple missions between LLO and lunar surface dedicated to crew rotation; and Multiple missions dedicated to cargo shipments within the regime of lunar surface and LLO. A complete set of structural specifications is given

Automatic motion analysis of colliding spheres

Motion analysis is useful to compute linear and angular velocities and acceleration of an object from a sequence of images. This thesis is part of an investigation to compute the translation and rotation velocities needed to determine the collision parameters of two colliding spheres. This involves the tracking of the spheres and feature points on the spheres over a time interval. An experimental setup releases two spheres such that they collide and a high speed imaging system, i.e., Kodak Ektapro 1000 is utilised to record the motion of the spheres. The imaging system is capable of recording at a speed of 1000 frames/sec with an image resolution of 239 x 192 for each frame. Selected images are analyzed in a PC 486 using programs developed with the Visilog software from Noesis 1. Edge data from the images allow the feature points and the locations of the spheres to be detected and their locations recorded. Centers of the circles are computed using the Hough transform technique. Correspondence of the feature points from frame to frame is achieved using the proximal uniformity constraint. Suggestions for future work are given

Extreme weather and climate in Europe

This report describes the current scientific knowledge of extreme weather and climate events in Europe for the following variables: temperature, precipitation, hail, and drought (with the following types of drought: meteorological, hydrological and soil moisture). The content summarises key literature drawn from peer reviewed journals and other sources (business and government reports), and builds upon the synthesised results presented in international assessments such as IPCC reports. It describes the recorded observations and modelled projections for extreme events including definitions, frequency, trends, spatial and temporal distribution. The report also presents an overview of the indices used to characterise extreme events as well as their main uses, before going on to describe the datasets where they are recorded, and provides information on the strengths and weaknesses of the indices and the datasets. Extra consideration is given to indices that are relevant to socio-economic impacts resulting from climate change and relevant statistical techniques for analysing extreme events. Observed changes in global climate and extreme events provide the context to the changes in extreme events observed in Europe, which are described for much of the 20th century. Modelled projections of extreme events are also given, under different emissions scenarios and time horizons, including results from regional models covering the European domain, such as EURO-CORDEX. The report is written for climate scientists, climate researchers and experts who use climate information in a professional role. There are four case studies (Appendix 2) which provide an anatomy of different recent European extreme weather/climate events including meteorological impacts and synoptic context. Observed global temperature trends show the number of warm extremes has increased and number of cool extremes has decreased over the last 100 years, and the length and frequency of summer heat waves has increased during the last century. In Europe these trends are most pronounced in the last 40 years although regional variations exist. For Europe, 2014 was the warmest year on record, although it had fewer hot days than recent years. Under future climate change with continued warming, the number of heat waves is projected to increase, along with their duration and intensity. Under all emissions scenarios, summers like the hot summer experienced in 2003 will become commonplace by the 2040s. The global trend in precipitation is generally for wetter conditions over the 20th century although changes are less temporally and spatially coherent than those observed for temperature. The general trend in precipitation for Europe in the 20th century is of increases over northern Europe and decreases over southern Europe. Extreme precipitation is becoming more intense and more frequent in Europe, especially in central and eastern Europe in winter, often resulting in greater and more frequent flooding. Since 1950 winter wet spells increased in duration in northern Europe and reduced in southern Europe, while summer wet spells became shorter in northern and eastern Europe. An increasing proportion of total rainfall is observed to fall on heavy rainfall days. Extreme precipitation (including short intense convective or longer duration frontal types) demonstrates complex variability and lacks a robust spatial pattern. Climate models project that events currently considered extreme are expected to occur more frequently in the future. For example a 1-in-20 year annual maximum daily precipitation amount is likely to become a 1-in-5 to 1-in-15 year event by the end of the 21st century in many parts of Europe. There are few ground based hail observation networks, so satellite measurements and weather models are used to identify hail forming conditions. In Europe most extreme hail events occur in the summer over Central Europe and the Alps where convective energy is greatest. Intense hail events are linked to increases in convective energy in the atmosphere observed over the last 30 years. Hailstorm projection studies, although limited to France, northern Italy and Germany, show increases in the convective conditions that lead to hail and some areas show a rise in damage days although this is not statistically significant. Recent severe droughts include Italy (1997-2002), the Baltic countries 2005-2009, the European heatwave of summer 2003, and the widespread European drought of 2011. The 1950s were prone to long, intense, Europe-wide meteorological and hydrological droughts. In northern and eastern Europe the highest drought frequency and severity was from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s. Southern and Western Europe (especially the Mediterranean) show the highest drought frequency and severity since 1990. There has been a small but continuous increase of the European areas prone to drought from the 1980s to the early 2010s. Regional climate models project a decrease in summer precipitation until 2100 of 17%. Dry periods are expected to occur 3 times more often at the end of this century and to last longer by 1 to 3 days compared to the period of 1971-2000. There is significant uncertainty associated with future projections of drought, with climate variability being the dominant source of uncertainty in observed and projected soil moisture drough

Moonlight Kisses

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