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Earnings from farming in many developing countries have been depressed by anti-agricultural biases in own-country price and trade policies, as well as by governments of richer countries favoring local farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduce national and global economic welfare, add to global inequality and poverty, and are mostly the result of trade restrictions. Yet until recently they have not been disciplined by the GATT or WTO. New evidence illustrates where the GATT and WTO have failed to prevent rises in agricultural protectionism, including in developing countries. Global economy wide modeling results reveal that substantial trade policy reform has been achieved since the mid-1980s in ways that have helped developing country farmers, but that there remains very considerable scope for further farm policy reform. In the decades ahead, the effects of policies on farmers and others in developing countries depend on whether an ambitious Doha Round agreement is signed and countries continue the recent trends towards free trade. Should Doha fail, agricultural protectionism may well grow in emerging economies, suggesting that the stakes in the Doha Round are much higher than is traditionally believed. ; Financial assistance from World Bank Trust Funds (particularly those provided by the governments of Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom), and the Australian Research Council is gratefully acknowledged.

Earnings from farming in many developing countries have been depressed by anti-agricultural biases in own-country price and trade policies, as well as by governments of richer countries favoring local farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduce national and global economic welfare, add to global inequality and poverty, and are mostly the result of trade restrictions. Yet until recently they have not been disciplined by the GATT or WTO. New evidence illustrates where the GATT and WTO have failed to prevent rises in agricultural protectionism, including in developing countries. Global economy wide modeling results reveal that substantial trade policy reform has been achieved since the mid-1980s in ways that have helped developing country farmers, but that there remains very considerable scope for further farm policy reform. In the decades ahead, the effects of policies on farmers and others in developing countries depend on whether an ambitious Doha Round agreement is signed and countries continue the recent trends towards free trade. Should Doha fail, agricultural protectionism may well grow in emerging economies, suggesting that the stakes in the Doha Round are much higher than is traditionally believed. ; Financial assistance from World Bank Trust Funds (particularly those provided by the governments of Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom), and the Australian Research Council is gratefully acknowledged.

Although Mozambique has considerable agricultural potential, rural poverty remains extremely high. This paper examines the extent to which global and domestic price distortions affect agricultural production and national poverty. The author develops a computable general equilibrium (CGE) and micro-simulation model of Mozambique that is linked to the results of a global model. This framework is used to examine the effects of eliminating global and national price distortions. Model results indicate that agriculture is adversely affected by current trade distortions due to policies in the rest of the world. While a removal of all merchandise trade distortions will reduce import prices, it will also raise agricultural production and reduce poverty. By contrast, removing only agricultural price distortions abroad will have little effect on Mozambique's agricultural sector. Model results indicate that Mozambique's own distortions are also biased against agriculture, with producers of processed agricultural products enjoying high protection levels. Removing these distortions causes a significant expansion of agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and a reduction in both poverty and inequality. The findings therefore suggest that removing own-country and rest-of-world distortions will have positive implications for agriculture and for the overall economy in Mozambique, and in particular it will reduce its poverty and inequality.

Import barriers are often raised during turbulent times, as governments worry about immediate domestic concerns such as unemployment. The recent global financial crisis, however, was accompanied by an exogenous upward spike in the international price of food, which led some countries to raise export barriers, thereby exacerbating both the price spike and the international welfare transfer associated with that change in the terms of trade. As in previous price-spike periods, that response by some food-exporting countries was accompanied by a lowering of import restrictions by numerous food-importing countries, further exacerbating the international price spike. This paper provides new evidence up to 2010 on the extent of the change in domestic relative to international prices in both groups of countries, and compares it with responses during two previous food price-spike periods. It concludes that there is a need for stronger World Trade Organization disciplines on export as well as import restrictions, so as to limit the extent to which beggar-thy-neighbour government responses to international price spikes (up or down) exacerbate those shocks. ; The authors are grateful for financial support from the Australian Research Council, Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, and World Bank.

Import barriers are often raised during turbulent times, as governments worry about immediate domestic concerns such as unemployment. The recent global financial crisis, however, was accompanied by an exogenous upward spike in the international price of food, which led some countries to raise export barriers, thereby exacerbating both the price spike and the international welfare transfer associated with that change in the terms of trade. As in previous price-spike periods, that response by some food-exporting countries was accompanied by a lowering of import restrictions by numerous food-importing countries, further exacerbating the international price spike. This paper provides new evidence up to 2010 on the extent of the change in domestic relative to international prices in both groups of countries, and compares it with responses during two previous food price-spike periods. It concludes that there is a need for stronger World Trade Organization disciplines on export as well as import restrictions, so as to limit the extent to which beggar-thy-neighbour government responses to international price spikes (up or down) exacerbate those shocks. ; The authors are grateful for financial support from the Australian Research Council, Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, and World Bank.

We estimate the impact of global merchandise trade distortions and services regulations on agricultural value added in various countries. Using the latest versions of the GTAP database and the GTAP-AGR model of the global economy, our results suggest real net farm incomes would rise in developing countries with a move to free trade, thereby alleviating rural poverty—despite a terms of trade deterioration for some developing countries that are net food importers or are enjoying preferential access to agricultural markets of high-income countries. We also show, for several large developing countries, the contribution of their own versus other countries' trade policies. ; The authors are grateful for funding from BNPP and DFID Trust Funds from the Dutch and British governments.

We estimate the impact of global merchandise trade distortions and services regulations on agricultural value added in various countries. Using the latest versions of the GTAP database and the GTAP-AGR model of the global economy, our results suggest real net farm incomes would rise in developing countries with a move to free trade, thereby alleviating rural poverty—despite a terms of trade deterioration for some developing countries that are net food importers or are enjoying preferential access to agricultural markets of high-income countries. We also show, for several large developing countries, the contribution of their own versus other countries' trade policies. ; The authors are grateful for funding from BNPP and DFID Trust Funds from the Dutch and British governments.

A growing literature examines the link between preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and peace among member states. However, despite the potentially competitive nature of these agreements, there has been little research examining whether and how PTAs could induce hostilities between members and nonmembers. In this article, I argue that dyadic conflict is more likely when one dyad member's exclusive PTA with a third party results in lower exports for the dyad member that is excluded from the agreement. Importantly, I contend that trade creating as well as trade diverting PTAs can have this effect. I use a triadic extension of the gravity model of trade to estimate how an exclusive PTA influences the exports of nonmembers relative to PTA members. Using these estimates in statistical tests of dyadic militarized interstate dispute onset spanning 1961 to 2000, I find that PTA-induced trade distortions are associated with a higher likelihood of conflict between members and nonmembers.