Has Agricultural Trade Liberalization Improved Welfare In The Least Developed Countries

Developing countries as a group stand to gain very substantially from trade reform in agricultural commodities. Agricultural Trade Liberalization and the Least Developed Countries is the first book to address important questions relating to this subject. The authors are world renowned experts on international trade and development and they address a very important and timely issue.

Most of the gains from multilateral liberalization come from the countries' own liberalization efforts. Least-developed countries that failed to liberalize their trade policy lost the opportunity for gains that the Uruguay Round made possible.Ingco evaluates the progress in agricultural liberalization - and the welfare effects for least-developed and net food-importing countries - as a result of agricultural price shocks resulting from the Uruguay Round. She finds that:- The changes in welfare are significantly affected by the structure of trade and distortions in the domestic economy.- Although many economies are hurt by increases in world prices, losses in terms of trade are small relative to total GDP. Only in a few countries does the estimated welfare change constitute more than 1 percent of GDP. - In several countries, the distortion effects are significantly larger than the terms-of-trade effects. In some cases, the distortion effects work in opposition to the terms-of-trade effects and are large enough to reverse the sign of the net welfare change.In short, removing policy distortions could convert the small loss in terms of trade to potential gains. But many least-developed, net food-importing countries did not use the Round to support domestic efforts at trade reform. As most studies show, most gains from multilateral liberalization come from the countries' own liberalization efforts, so countries that failed to liberalize their trade policy lost the opportunity for gains.This paper - a product of the International Trade Division, International Economics Department - is part of a larger effort in the department to evaluate the effects of trade liberalization with special focus on least-developed and net-food importing developing countries.

Most of the gains from multilateral liberalization come from the countries' own liberalization efforts. Least-developed countries that failed to liberalize their trade policy lost the opportunity for gains that the Uruguay Round made possible. Ingco evaluates the progress in agricultural liberalization - and the welfare effects for least-developed and net food-importing countries - as a result of agricultural price shocks resulting from the Uruguay Round. She finds that: * The changes in welfare are significantly affected by the structure of trade and distortions in the domestic economy. * Although many economies are hurt by increases in world prices, losses in terms of trade are small relative to total GDP. Only in a few countries does the estimated welfare change constitute more than 1 percent of GDP. * In several countries, the distortion effects are significantly larger than the terms-of-trade effects. In some cases, the distortion effects work in opposition to the terms-of-trade effects and are large enough to reverse the sign of the net welfare change. In short, removing policy distortions could convert the small loss in terms of trade to potential gains. But many least-developed, net food-importing countries did not use the Round to support domestic efforts at trade reform. As most studies show, most gains from multilateral liberalization come from the countries' own liberalization efforts, so countries that failed to liberalize their trade policy lost the opportunity for gains. This paper - a product of the International Trade Division, International Economics Department - is part of a larger effort in the department to evaluate the effects of trade liberalization with special focus on least-developed and net-food importing developing countries.

Global trade liberalization-- reducing both negative and positive protection in line with the Dunkel proposal-- would gain developing countries an estimated $60 billion a year.

In the ongoing Doha Development Round of World Trade Organization negotiations, developing countries have had much greater leverage, due at least in part to their large and growing share of world trade. But will the increased influence of developing countries translate into a final agreement that is truly more development-friendly? What would be key ingredients in such a final outcome of the negotiations, and what would the developing countries really get out of it. This two volume set seeks to answer these questions. This volume (Volume 2) addresses the question of how a development-friendly outcome to the talks would affect developing countries by quantifying the impact of multilateral trade reform. It presents several different approaches to modeling the effects of the outcome of negotiations, and then investigates why these (and other) modeling efforts produce such divergent results. Volume 1 is issues-oriented. It takes up some key questions in the negotiations, setting the stage with a historical overview of the Doha Development Agenda to help identify issues of most significance to developing countries, and then explores select issues in greater depth. Aimed at policymakers and stakeholders, this two-volume effort puts into the public domain important analytical work that will improve the chance for a pro-development outcomes of the Doha round negotiations.

Agriculture seems to be a difficult sector to manage for most governments. Developing countries face tough dilemmas in deciding on appropriate price poli eies to stimulate food production and maintain stable, preferably low, prices for poor consumers. Governments in developed countries face similar difficult deci sions. They are called upon to give income guarantees to farmers whose incomes are unstable and relatively low when compared to those in the nonagricultural sector. These guarantees often lead to ever-increasing budgetary outlays and unwanted agricultural surpluses. High prices make new investments and the application of new technologies more attractive than world prices warrant, and a process is set in motion where technological innovation attains amomenturn of its own, in turn requiring price policies that maintain their rates of return. Surpluses are disposed of with subsidies in domestic markets or in the international market. Price competition reduces the market share of other exporters, who may be efficient producers, unless they are willing to engage in subsidy competition. This lowers export earnings and farm incomes or depletes the public resources of developing countries that export competing products. Retaliatory measures have led to frictions and further distortions of world prices. Every so orten the major agricultural exporters - the USA, the EC, Aus tralia, or Canada - accuse one another of unfair intervention. Though they have agreed to discuss agricultural trade liberalization under GATT negotiations, if anything, the expenditure on farm support has continued to increase in both the EC and the USA.

Annotation This collection highlights the main trade issues of importance to different regions of the world.

Abstract: Rich countries' agricultural trade policies are the battleground on which the future of the WTO's troubled Doha Round will be determined. Subject to widespread criticism, they nonetheless appear to be almost immune to serious reform, and one of their most common defenses is that they protect poor farmers. The authors' findings reject this claim. The analysis uses detailed data on farm incomes to show that major commodity programs are highly regressive in the United States, and that the only serious losses under trade reform are among large, wealthy farmers in a few heavily protected subsectors. In contrast, analysis using household data from 15 developing countries indicates that reforming rich countries' agricultural trade policies would lift large numbers of developing country farm households out of poverty. In the majority of cases these gains are not outweighed by the poverty-increasing effects of higher food prices among other households. Agricultural reforms that appear feasible, even under an ambitious Doha Round, achieve only a fraction of the benefits for developing countries that full liberalization promises, but protect U.S. large farms from most of the rigors of adjustment. Finally, the analysis indicates that maximal trade-led poverty reductions occur when developing countries participate more fully in agricultural trade liberalization.

The purpose of this book is to analyze the effects of developed countries' agricultural policies on developing countries. The main focus is on food security, poverty and other topics such as multifunctionality, biotechnology and regional agreements, as an input to policy reform within the World Trade Organization (WTO) trade negotiations. The book arises from a joint project between the Food and Resource Economics Institute in Denmark and the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.

This study reviews policy developments in recent years and, in the light of that, explores ways in which further consensus might be reached among WTO members to reduce farm trade distortions – and thereby also progress the multilateral trade reform agenda. Particular attention is given to ways that would boost well-being in developing countries, especially for those food-insecure households still suffering from poverty and hunger.