Agricultural Trade Liberalization and Developing Countries

摘要

The report examines the effects on developing countries of liberalizing agricultural domestic and trade policies in both the industrial and developing market economies. In order to undertake the analysis, the authors utilized the Static World Policy Simulation (SWOPSIM) framework to create a static global agricultural net trade model that contains 36 countries or regions and 22 commodities. If the industrial and developing economies liberalize access to their agricultural markets, world prices of most agricultural goods will increase. Developing countries' producers benefit with increases in income, but consumers lose with a higher food bill. Agricultural trade balances improve, particularly when the developing countries participate in the liberalization process. The gains (or losses) attributed to developing countries, though, are highly skewed. With higher food costs there are potential problems for some low-income countries and low-income consumers.