GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and Agriculture: The Concepts of PSE's (Producer Subsidy Equivalents) and CSE's (Consumer Subsidy Equivalents)

摘要

Two measures of government intervention in agriculture, producer subsidy equivalents and consumer subsidy equivalents, are explained in the illustrated booklet. The PSE and CSE measures can be used by negotiators at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to summarize into one percentage number the level of each country's intervention in the agricultural sector. The booklet demonstrates step-by-step how a single percentage can be calculated for how much each country subsidizes its agriculture, so that the thousands of country policies can be compared more fairly. It might become easier to negotiate overall reductions in the subsidies without having to discuss each policy.