Frank van Tongeren

A Cost-Benefit Framework for the Assessment of Non-Tariff Measures in Agro-Food Trade

This report develops a conceptual framework for the assessment of costs and benefits associated with non-tariff measures that allows an evidence-based comparative assessment of alternative regulatory approaches.

Trade, technology spillovers, and food production in China

Trade, Technology Spillovers, and Food Production in China. — This paper studies technology spillovers between China and other countries, international trade in inputs being the prime carrier of knowledge in agricultural production. Human capital characteristics and structural characteristics of the agricultural production sys-tems determine the local usability of foreign knowledge for Chinese farmers. The authors utilize a multi-region applied general equilibrium model to analyze Chinese opportunities to benefit from foreign technology improvements in grain production. It is shown that possible negative welfare effects of unilateral trade liberalization of China against North American imports of agricultural inputs may be more than compensated by productivity gains if technology spillovers are included.ZusammenfassungHandel, Spillovers von Technologie und Nahrungsmittelproduktion in China. — Die Verfasser untersuchen die Spillovers von Technologie zwischen China und anderen LÄndern, wobei der internationale Handel mit Inputs das Hauptübertragungsmittel von Wissen bei der Agrarproduktion ist. Charakteristika des Humankapitals und strukturelle Merkmale der landwirtschaftlichen Produktionssysteme bestimmen die örtliche Brauchbarkeit auslÄndischen Wissens für chinesische Bauern. Die Verfasser benutzen ein multiregional angewandtes allgemeines Gleichgewichts-modell, um die Möglichkeiten Chinas zu analysieren, von auslÄndischen Technologie-verbesserungen in der Getreideproduktion zu profitieren. Es zeigt sich, da\ mögliche negative Wohlfahrtswirkungen einer einseitigen Handelsliberalisierung Chinas gegen-über nordamerikanischen Importen von Agrarinputs mehr als ausgeglichen werden können durch ProduktivitÄtsgewinne, wenn Spillovers von Technologie einbezogen werden.

Measuring Costs and Benefits of Non-Tariff Measures in Agri-Food Trade

This paper provides a systematic welfare-based approach to analyze the impact of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on trade and welfare in presence of market imperfections. We focus on standard-like measures such as technical barriers and sanitary and phytosanitary regulations. The approach overcomes the shortcomings of the mainstream approach based on the analysis of forgone trade caused by trade costs. The latter ignores market imperfections: welfare increases when NTMs are removed and trade expands. We explain how to account for external effects and market failures in trade-focused welfare analysis, leading to a more balanced overall assessment of measures despite a potential reduction of trade flows. We show that the relationship between trade, welfare, and NTMs is complex. The optimum NTM is often not zero. An application to shrimp trade illustrates the feasibility of the proposed approach. The illustration shows that the reinforcement of a food safety standard can be socially preferable to the status-quo situation, both domestically and internationally.

Impact of Animal Disease Outbreaks and Alternative Control Practices on Agricultural Markets and Trade

Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is one of the most contagious animal diseases. Because of the easy transfer between animals, FMD is of importance to the domestic market, but also to international agricultural trade. Infected countries are often confronted with rigorous measures implemented by their trading partners. The guidelines set out by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) define the waiting period after which a country that experienced an FMD epidemic can be declared as free of the disease for international trade purposes. In order to minimize the duration of this period, infected developed countries have often implemented mass slaughter strategies. The aim of the paper is to examine the impact of alternative control strategies on the domestic market of the infected country and on international markets. The paper provides a description of the different options for policy intervention in case of a FMD epidemic. It gives an overview of the history of FMD in OECD and selected non-OECD countries including the policy measures taken to fight the disease. A quantitative assement combining the Aglink-Cosimo and the GTAP model is presented.

Growing together or growing apart? : a Village-Level Study of the Impact of the Doha Round on Rural China

Most studies of the opening of the Chinese economy focus at the national level. The few existing disaggregated analyses are limited to analyzing changes in agricultural production. The authors use an innovative village equilibrium model that accounts for nonseparability of household production and consumption decisions. This allows them to analyze the impact of trade liberalization on household production, consumption, and off-farm employment, as well as the interactions among these three aspects of household decisions. They use the village model to analyze the impact of price changes and labor demand, the two major pathways through which international trade affects households. Analyzing the impact of trade liberalization for one village in the Jiangxi province of China, the authors find changes in relative prices and outside village employment to have opposite impacts on household decisions. At the household level the impact of price changes dominates the employment impacts. Comparing full trade liberalization and the more limited Doha scenario, reactions are more modest in the latter case for most households, but the response is nonlinear to increasing depth of trade reforms. This is explained by household-specific transaction (shadow) prices in combination with endogenous choices to participate in the output markets. Rising income inequalities are a growing concern in China. Whether trade liberalization allows incomes to grow together or to grow apart depends on whether one accounts for the reduction in consumption demand when household members migrate. Assessing the net effect on the within-village income distribution, the authors find that poorer households that own draught power gain most from trade liberalization. The households that have to rely on the use of own labor for farm activities and are not endowed with traction power, nor with a link to employment opportunities in the prospering coastal regions, have fewer opportunities for adjustment.

Agricultural Policy Design and Implementation

Are current agricultural policies based on measurable objectives? Is the current policy set adequately addressing stated objectives? What could an improved agricultural policy set look like, and how to get onto a reform trajectory? These are some of the questions addressed in this publication. It draws on several projects that were undertaken in recent years under the auspices of the OECD Committee for Agriculture and summarizes practical recommendations concerning the pathway to agricultural policy reform. It presents operational characteristics of the policy set that would best achieve domestic policy objectives while minimising distortions and spillovers in international trade.

Back to the Future: A 25-year Retrospective on GTAP and the Shaping of a New Agenda

This article looks back at 25 years of achievements of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) from different angles. It covers the design features of the project and the collaboration in a global research network, the contributions GTAP has made to better informed trade policy making, its contributions in the area of environment and climate change and its capacity to absorb theoretical developments in applied modeling. The paper also makes some suggestions about future directions.

A Cost-Benefit Approach for the Assessment of Nontariff Measures in International Trade

This chapter uses a welfare-based conceptual framework for the assessment of costs and benefits associated with nontariff measures in the presence of market imperfections such as asymmetric information and environmental or health externalities. The framework allows for evidence-based comparative assessments of alternative regulatory approaches addressing these imperfections. The conceptual work is illustrated with an empirical case study of labeling internationally traded fish products.

Cadre d'analyse coût-avantages pour l'évaluation des mesures non tarifaires s'appliquant aux échanges agroalimentaires

Ce rapport presente un cadre conceptuel pour l’evaluation des couts et benefices associes aux mesures non tarifaires. Il permet une evaluation comparative basee sur les faits des diverses approches reglementaires.

Elaboration et mise en oeuvre des politiques agricoles

Les politiques agricoles sont-elles a ce jour fondees sur des objectifs mesurables ? Parviennent-elles a atteindre correctement les objectifs avoues ? A quoi pourrait ressembler une politique agricole amelioree ? Comment s’embarquer sur une trajectoire de reforme ? Ces questions sont examinees, parmi d’autres, dans cette publication. Elle s’appuie sur plusieurs projets realises ces dernieres annees sous les auspices du Comite de l’Agriculture de l’OCDE et formule de maniere succincte des recommandations pratiques pour mettre en oeuvre la reforme de la politique agricole. Elle presente les caracteristiques operationnelles d’un ensemble de politiques qui permettrait d’atteindre les objectifs internes des politiques tout en minimisant les distorsions et les effets secondaires sur les marches mondiaux.