James Kaufman

Potential Economic Impacts of Asynchronous Approvals of Biotech Crops on South Korea

Biotech crops represent a substantial share of key agricultural commodities traded in international markets, primarily maize, soybeans, cotton, and canola. Unique among agricultural innovations, though, biotechnology is strictly regulated.

Economic Impact Analysis of Potential Trade Restrictions on Biotech Maize in Latin American Countries

The production and trade of biotech maize across major North and South America exporters has increased dramatically in the last 15 years. However, as new biotech maize traits are being deregulated by national regulatory authorities at increasingly different speeds, the chances that some biotech maize traits may be approved for commercialization and production in some exporting country but not for use in an importing country, have been growing. So has the risk of costly trade disruptions. In this paper we use a spatial equilibrium model of the global maize trade to evaluate the potential economic impacts of such trade disruptions in the Americas. We find that potential trade disruptions for import dependent Latin American countries can have significant negative economic impacts. The results suggest that the development of adequate regulatory capacity and pooling regulatory resources at a regional level as well as adopting national policies for dealing with unapproved biotech crops (e.g. adoption of CODEX Annex) will likely be important in the future in Latin America.

New Uncertainties in Land Use Changes Caused by the Production of Biofuels

The environmental benefits of biofuels continue to be debated. Recent attention focuses on biofuel-induced land use changes and their impact on greenhouse gas emissions. We develop an international, multi-commodity, partial equilibrium model and measure the impact of US and EU biofuel production on land use as well as the associated greenhouse gas emissions. We find these measures to be sensitive to changes in assumptions, specifically relating to yields. We note the possibility of offsetting cross-commodity effects. We identify the context and time path as previously unrecognized sources of variation and potential error in greenhouse gas calculations.