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Agricultural Price Distortions: Trends and Volatility, Past and Prospective

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  • Anderson, Kym
Abstract
For decades, 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 favouring their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduced global economic welfare and agricultural trade, and almost certainly added to global inequality and poverty. Progress has been made over the past three decades in reducing agricultural protection in high-income countries and agricultural disincentives in developing countries, but the propensity of governments to insulate their domestic food market from fluctuations in international prices has not waned. Both food-importing and food-exporting countries engage in insulating behaviour, which contributes to the amplification of international food price fluctuations yet does little to advance their national food security. Thus much scope still remains to improve economic welfare and to reduce poverty by removing remaining trade distortions. This paper summarizes indicators of these trends and fluctuations in farm trade barriers before examining what unilateral or multilateral trade arrangements, together with complementary domestic measures, could help advance global food security.

Suggested Citation

  • Anderson, Kym, 2012. "Agricultural Price Distortions: Trends and Volatility, Past and Prospective," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 125692, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:iaae12:125692
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.125692
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    Cited by:

    1. Giray Gozgor, 2019. "Effects of the agricultural commodity and the food price volatility on economic integration: an empirical assessment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 173-202, January.
    2. Kozicka, Marta & Kalkuhl, Matthias & Saini, Shweta & Brockhaus, Jan, 2014. "Modeling Indian Wheat and Rice Sector Policies," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 169808, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Mittal, S & Hariharan, VK & Subash, SP, 2018. "Price volatility trends and price transmission for major staples in India," Agricultural Economics Research Review, Agricultural Economics Research Association (India), vol. 31(1).
    4. Aimable Nsabimana & Franklin Amuakwa-Mensah, 2018. "Does mobile phone technology reduce agricultural price distortions? Evidence from cocoa and coffee industries," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-24, December.
    5. Will, Matthias Georg & Pies, Ingo, 2014. "Discourse and regulation failures: The ambivalent influence of NGOs on political organizations," Discussion Papers 2014-2, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Chair of Economic Ethics.
    6. Wenshou Yan, 2016. "Political Economy of Trade and Storage Policies Coordination, and the Role of Domestic Public Storage in the World Market," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2016-16, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
    7. Zhike Lv & Ting Xu, 2019. "Do economic sanctions affect protectionism? Evidence from agricultural support," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 27-42, March.
    8. Wanki Moon & Gabriel Pino, 2018. "Do U.S. citizens support government intervention in agriculture? Implications for the political economy of agricultural protection," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(1), pages 119-129, January.
    9. Richard Grabowski, 2017. "Limited access states and elections: an unexpected economic consequence," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 61-78, June.
    10. Orden, David, 2013. "The Changing Structure of Domestic Support and Its Implications for Trade," Commissioned Papers 146657, Canadian Agricultural Trade Policy Research Network.
    11. Dariusz Kusz & Bożena Kusz & Paweł Hydzik, 2022. "Changes in the Price of Food and Agricultural Raw Materials in Poland in the Context of the European Union Accession," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-21, April.
    12. Tedesco, Ilaria & Pelloni, Alessandra & Trovato, Giovanni, 2015. "Oecd Agricultural Subsidies And Poverty Rates In Lower Income Countries," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 3(2), pages 1-19, April.
    13. Nathan P. Hendricks & Aaron Smith & Nelson B. Villoria & Matthieu Stigler, 2023. "The effects of agricultural policy on supply and productivity: Evidence from differential changes in distortions," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 54(1), pages 44-61, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural and Food Policy;

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • Q17 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agriculture in International Trade
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy

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