Prospects for EC agricultural trade with developing countries

Analysis of EC trade in 57 agricultural products, with 36 of the most important developing countries reveals that an EC import expansion would significantly benefit the exports of these countries in most products. An index of EC-wide resistance to import expansion is subsequently defined and estimated for all products. The results suggest that for the major products of export interest to developing countries, the EC market is very resistant to non-growth induced expansion of extra-EC imports. -Autho

World cereal price instability and a market based instrument for LDC food import risk management

The paper reviews the types of responses of low income food deficit country (LIFDC) agents to food related shocks. It suggests that LIFDCs would probably benefit from internationally provided insurance. The paper then argues that the world cereal markets do not appear to have become more unstable despite recent liberalisation and declines in world stocks. The paper proposes the institution of a fund aimed at providing option like contracts to the LIFDCs, to insure that they would not incur excessive food import costs in times of need. The premiums of such contract could be subsidised by developed countries, as part of their overall aid. While such a fund would not provide full insurance against excessive food import bills, it would go part of the way toward such a goal. Simulations of the proposal suggest that the cost to developed and developing countries alike would seem to be smaller than the cost of current arrangements, and the benefits would seem larger. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Household welfare during crisis and adjustment in Ghana

A model of the producing and consuming household is developed and used to derive comparative static indicators of real welfare changes between periods that depend on observable data. Supply and demand modles are then used to extend the model to a piecewise linear approximation of multi-period non-linear welfare Changes. The framework is applied to Ghana, by specifying three poor and two non-poor groups based on micro-survey data, that comprise the whole population. Analysis of representative households suggests that real incomes of all households declined in the period before the Economic Recovery and have risen afterwards. The changes in real incomes, however, are due to different reasons for each household class, depending on their structure of income. © 1994 Centre for the Study of African Economies

World cereal price instability and a market based scheme for managing the risk of developing country cereal imports [Instabilite du prix mondial des cereales et importations des pays en developpement: Un systeme de gestion des risques fonde sur le marche]

The paper first argues that the world cereal markets do not appear to have become more unstable despite recent liberalization and declines in world stocks. Second, the low income food deficit countries (PFRDAs) can, by restructuring domestic production, go a long way towards minimising their risk exposure in international markets. Developed countries can provide technical assistance towards that end. Third, there are probably too many resources devoted in PFRDAs by households to self-insurance, given the lack of publicly provided insurance schemes. This has the tendency to lower growth. The PFRDAs would probably benefit from internationally provided insurance. The paper proposes the institution of a fund aimed at providing option like contracts to the PFRDAs, to insure that they would not incur excessive food import costs in times of need. The premiums of such contract could be subsidised by developed countries, as part of their overall aid. While such a fund would not provide full insurance against excessive food import bills, it would go part of the way toward such a goal. The cost to developed and developing countries alike would seem to be smaller than the cost of current arrangements, and the benefits would seem larger

European community enlargement and world trade in fruits and vegetables

World trade models for the product classes fresh fruits, dried fruits, processed fruits, fresh vegetables, and processed vegetables are estimated and used to project the impact on export prices and trade patterns likely to arise after the European Economic Community enlargement with Greece, Portugal, and Spain. The results indicate that current world trends in import demands and export supplies if continued, and in the absence of enlargement, will cause marked declines of export prices for four of the above product categories (except dried fruits). The enlargement will not significantly modify these price projections, but it will divert a significant part of European Community imports of these products to the three new member countries. © 1983 American Agricultural Economics Association

Endogenous price policies and international wheat prices

International prices are modeled as Cournot equilibrium interactions of national excess demand functions, which, in turn, are solutions of domestic welfare optimization problems. It is shown that interaction of national policies can lead to excess depression and instability of both international and domestic prices. The model is estimated for wheat and is used to show that, under free trade, average world prices would be much higher while price instability would be much lower. Furthermore, the European Economic Community policies alone contribute about 80% to these distortions. © 1983 American Agricultural Economics Association

A computable general equilibrium assessment of the impact of illegal immigration on the Greek economy

Recent years have witnessed a large inflow of illegal immigrants into Greece. Past surveys have examined the extent and nature of this immigration, but have not analysed the impacts on the economy. This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the impact of illegal immigration on the economy of the small open type, like that of Greece. The theoretical analysis uses a small stylised model to show that there is no unequivocal case for illegal immigration to lead to declines in the real wages of unskilled labour and increases in the real wages of skilled. Empirical analysis using a recently constructed applied general equilibrium model for Greece, adapted to the purpose in hand, shows that the inflow of illegal immigrants has resulted in declines of the real disposable incomes of two classes of households among the fifteen modelled, namely those headed by an unskilled person, that are poor and middle income. All other households gain. The ones who lose, however, make up about 37% of the Greek population. The distributional effects are moderated, however, when rigidities in the labour market are simulated. This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the impact of illegal immigrants on the small type economy of Greece by using the multisectoral computable general equilibrium model. The theoretical analysis utilizes a model showing that there is no equivocal case for illegal immigration leading to the decline in the real wages of unskilled labor and increases in the real wages of skilled labor. The empirical analysis uses an applied general equilibrium model for Greece, showing that the inflow of illegal immigrants has resulted in declines of the real disposable incomes of two classes of households, namely, those headed by an unskilled person, and those belonging to the poor and middle class income bracket. The results, on the other hand, showed that the large increase in the influx of illegal immigrants is macroeconomically beneficial, having significant adverse distribution implications when flexible wage adjustment is assumed in various labor markets. It appears that unskilled and hired agricultural workers are among those that are severely affected by the inflow of illegal workers. The results also appear to be fairly sensitive with respect to the elasticities of labor supply and demand, while they appear to be quite insensitive to the elasticity of substitution in import demand and export supply. Furthermore, it is also insensitive to the various parameters concerning the structure of the illegal labor market such as the amount of wage differential between illegal and domestic unskilled labor as well as the monetary amounts that illegal laborers remit abroad