General Equilibrium Effects of Price Distortions on Global Markets, Farm Incomes and Welfare
Earnings from farming in many developing countries have been depressed by a pro-urban bias in own-country policies as well as by governments of richer countries favoring their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies, which...
Main Authors: | , , |
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Format: | Working Paper |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/945721468157178036/General-equilibrium-effects-of-price-distortions-on-global-markets-farm-incomes-and-welfare http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28194 |
Summary: | Earnings from farming in many developing
countries have been depressed by a pro-urban bias in
own-country policies as well as by governments of richer
countries favoring their farmers with import barriers and
subsidies. Both sets of policies, which reduce national and
global economic welfare and contribute to global inequality
and poverty, have been undergoing reform since the 1980s.
Using the linkage model of the global economy and
modifications to the pre-release of version 7 of the Global
Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) protection database for 2004,
this paper seeks to compare the effect of those reforms to
date with those that would come from removing remaining
agricultural and trade policies. Two sets of results are
thus presented: one showing the effects of policy reforms
between 1980-84 and 2004, the other showing what the removal
of remaining distortions as of 2004 could be. Both sets of
results indicate improvements in the real value of
agricultural output and exports, the real returns to farm
land and unskilled labor, and real net farm incomes in most
developing country regions despite the adverse effect on the
international terms of trade for some developing countries
that are net food importers or are enjoying preferential
access to agricultural markets of high-income countries.
Landowners in those high-income countries still offering
their farmers price supports could readily afford to
compensate them from the benefits of removing remaining
agricultural protectionism. |
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