Global distortions to agricultural markets : new indicators of trade and welfare impacts, 1955 to 2007

Despite recent reforms, world agricultural markets remain highly distorted by government policies. Traditional indicators of those price distortions can be poor guides to the policies'economic effects. Recent theoretical literature provides indicators of trade and welfare-reducing effects of price and trade policies which this paper builds on to develop more-satisfactory indexes. The authors exploit a new Agricultural Distortion database to generate estimates of them for developing and high-income countries over the past half century. These better approximations of the trade and welfare effects of sector policies are generated without a formal model of global markets or even price elasticity estimates.Currencies and Exchange Rates,Economic Theory&Research,Agribusiness,Markets and Market Access,Trade Policy

Global Distortions to Agricultural Markets: New Indicators of Trade and Welfare Impacts, 1955 to 2007

Despite reforms over the past quarter-century, world agricultural markets remain highly distorted by government policies. Traditional indicators of those price distortions such as the nominal rate of assistance and consumer tax equivalent provide measures of the degree of intervention, but they can be misleading as indicators of the true effects of those policies. By drawing on recent theoretical literature that provides indicators of the trade- and welfare-reducing effects of price and trade policies, this paper develops more-satisfactory indexes for capturing distortions to agricultural incentives. It then exploits the Agricultural Distortion database recently compiled by the World Bank to generate estimates of them for both developing and high-income countries over the past half century, based on a sample of 75 countries that together account for all but one-tenth of the world’s population, GDP and agricultural production. While they are still only partial equilibrium measures, they provide a much better approximation of the true trade and welfare effects of sectoral policies without needing a formal model of global markets or even price elasticity estimates.Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policies, trade restrictiveness index,

Global Distortions to Agricultural Markets: New Indicators of Trade and Welfare Impacts, 1955 to 2007

Despite recent reforms, world agricultural markets remain highly distorted by government policies. Traditional indicators of those price distortions can be poor guides to the policies? economic effects. Recent theoretical literature provides indicators of trade and welfare-reducing effects of price and trade policies which this paper builds on to develop more-satisfactory indexes. The authors exploit a new Agricultural Distortion database to generate estimates of them for developing and high-income countries over the past half century. These better approximations of the trade and welfare effects of sector policies are generated without a formal model of global markets or even price elasticity estimates.Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policies, trade restrictiveness index

Welfare- and trade-based indicators of national distortions to agricultural incentives

Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18,

LDEF solar cell radiation effects analysis

Because of the extended time that the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) mission stayed in space, the solar cells on the satellite experienced greater environments than originally planned. The cells showed an overall degradation in performance that is due to the combined effects of the various space environments. The purpose of this analysis is to calculate the effect of the accumulated radiation on the solar cells, thereby helping Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) to unravel the relative power degradation from the different environments