Setting the Trade Policy Agenda: What Roles for Economists?

Economists have influenced the trade policy agenda for establishing multilateral trade rules, disciplines and procedures and for negotiating MFN and preferential reductions in trade barriers and subsidies, in addition to affecting the agenda for unilateral policy reform. These roles are considered in turn, before focusing on the economists' contribution though quantifying the extent and effects of existing trade distortions and alternative reform initiatives. Many trade distortions remain, however, so the paper then looks at where trade economists' efforts in agenda-setting need to be focused in the years ahead.International Relations/Trade,

Agriculture and Agricultural Policies in China and India Post-Uruguay Round

Both India and China, as participants in the Uruguay Round, have had the Agreement on Agriculture (URAA) before them as they continued to reform their agricultural and trade policies over recent years. China did not join the WTO until December 2001, but it has nonetheless been undertaking reforms and has entered into substantial commitments to further reform its farm sector by end-2004, when all other countriesÂ’ UR commitments are due to be fully implemented. This paper reviews the progress expected to be made over the ten years since 1995 in these two populous developing countries. It summarizes their structural adjustments to production and trade as a consequence of their (and othersÂ’) economic growth and policy changes, before focusing on the nature and extent of the agricultural and other policy reforms themselves. It concludes by drawing out the implications of these developments for the roles these countries might play in international agricultural markets and in the agricultural negotiations of the Doha Round.

Setting the trade policy agenda : What roles for Economists?

Economists have influenced the trade policy agenda for establishing multilateral trade rules, disciplines, and procedures, and for negotiating most-favored nation and preferential reductions in trade barriers and subsidies, in addition to affecting the agenda for unilateral policy reform. These roles are considered in turn, before focusing on the economists'contribution through quantifying the extent and effects of existing trade distortions and alternative reform initiatives. Many trade distortions remain, however, sothe author looks at where trade economists'efforts in agenda-setting need to be focused in the years ahead.TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade Policy,Trade and Services

Social Policy Dimensions of Economic Integration: Environmental and Labour Standards

Social policies, particularly environmental and labour issues, are not new to trade policy fora including the GATT. However, they are likely to have a more prominent role in trade policy discussions in the years ahead for the new World Trade Organization. Many developing countries perceive the entwining of these social issues with trade policy as a threat to both their sovereignty and their economies, while significant groups in advanced economies consider it unfair, ecologically unsound, even immoral to trade with countries adopting much lower standards than theirs. This paper examines why these issues are becoming more prominent, whether the WTO is an appropriate forum to discuss them, and how they affect developing and other economies. It concludes that (a) the direct effect on developing economies is likely to be small and for some may even be positive through improved terms of trade and/or compensatory transfer payments, but (b) there is an important indirect negative effect on them and other economies, namely, the potential erosion of the rules-based multilateral trading system that would result from an over-use of trade measures to pursue environmental or labour market objectives.

Globalisation's Effects on World Agricultural Trade, 1960 to 2050

Recent globalisation has been characterised by a decline in costs of cross-border trade in farm and other products. It has been driven primarily by the information and communication technology revolution and – in the case of farm products – by reductions in governmental distortions to agricultural production, consumption and trade. Both have boosted economic growth and reduced poverty globally, especially in Asia. The first but maybe not the second of these drivers will continue in coming decades. World food prices will depend also on whether (and if so by how much) farm productivity growth continues to outpace demand growth and to what extent diets in emerging economies move towards livestock and horticultural products at the expense of staples. Demand in turn will be driven by population and income growth, but also by crude oil prices if they remain at current historically high levels, since that will affect biofuel demand. Climate change mitigation policies and adaptation, water market developments, and market access standards particularly for transgenic foods will add to future production, price and trade uncertainties.Globalisation, trade costs, distorted incentives, agricultural protectionism, trade policy reforms

The challenge of Reducing Subsidies and Trade Barriers

Phasing out distortionary government subsidies and barriers to international trade will yield extraordinarily high benefits relative to any adjustment costs, notwithstanding the considerable reforms that have already taken place over the past two decades. This paper surveys recent estimates, using global economy-wide simulation models, of the benefits of reducing remaining distortions via unilateral reform, multilateral trade negotiations, and preferential trading arrangements. Distortionary trade policies harm most the economies imposing them, but the worst of them (in agriculture and clothing) are particularly harmful to the worldÂ’s poorest people. Opportunities to reduce remaining distortions, including via the WTOÂ’s Doha Development Agenda as compared with sub-global preferential reform, are examined, before drawing out the implications of liberalization for poverty and the environment.Trade policy reform, subsidy reduction, Doha Development Agenda.

The New Global Economy: Opportunities and Challenges for Small Open Economies

This paper examines the strengthening forces behind the latest wave of globalization and draws out its consequences for the policy strategies of small open economies such as Singapore. The digital revolutionÂ’s contributions to globalization have been substantial, but so too have the policy reforms by national governments over the past two decades, both unilateral and regional. In addition, the GATT/WTO has been important in encouraging economies to open up more and to commit to staying open to international trade and investment during the past half century for rich countries and especially over the past decade for developing countries. Greater openness of and interdependence between national economies provides wonderful opportunities for small open economies, but it is not without its challenges. Globalization is raising the rewards to economies choosing good economic governance, but is also raising the cost to economies with poor economic governance. Crucial to good economic governance is a permanent commitment to a liberal international trade and payments regime, for services as well as goods, in addition to sound macroeconomic, sectoral and factor market policies.Globalization, Trade and investment liberalization, Small open economies

Distortions to Global Agricultural Markets: What Next?

A decline in governmental distortions to agricultural and other trade since the 1980s has contributed to economic growth and poverty alleviation globally. But new modeling results suggest that has taken the world only three-fifths of the way towards freeing merchandise trade, and that farm policies are responsible for 70 percent of the global welfare cost of remaining distortions to goods markets as of 2004. Meanwhile, new drivers are affecting the mean and variance of world prices of farm products, including biofuel mandates and subsidies, climate change mitigation policies and adaptation, water institution and policy developments, difficulties in concluding a multilateral Doha Round agricultural agreement at the WTO, and policies relating to transgenic foods. This paper reviews trends and fluctuations in past distortions to agricultural incentives, speculates on how they might evolve in coming decades alongside other market developments, and draws out implications for Australia.Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, Asia-Pacific region, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18,

Global Distortions to Agricultural Markets: New Indicators of Trade and Welfare Impacts, 1960 to 2007

Despite recent reforms, world agricultural markets remain highly distorted by government policies. Traditional indicators of those price distortions such as producer and consumer support estimates (PSEs and CSEs) can be poor guides to the policiesÂ’ economic effects. Recent theoretical literature provides scalar index numbers of trade- and welfare-reducing effects of price and trade policies which this paper builds on to develop more-satisfactory indexes that can be generated using no more than the data used to generate PSEs and CSEs. We then exploit a new Agricultural Distortion database to provide time series estimates of index numbers for 75 developing and high-income countries over the past half century.Agricultural policies, distorted commodity markets, trade restrictiveness index