How Level Is the Playing Field: An Economic Analysis of Agricultural Policy Reforms in Industrial Market Economies

摘要

An 11-region, 22-commodity work net trade model used to study the economic implications of agricultural policy reform in industrial market economies reveals that elimination of protectionist agricultural policies would drive up world prices for most commodities, and the increases would be closely related to the levels of government assistance. Government assistance to agricultural producers is highest in Japan, followed by the European Community and the United States. The analysis also indicates that the United States would improve its agricultural balance of trade, while the European Community and Japan would face considerably larger trade deficits. All three economies, however, would experience income gains from liberalization, indicating that policies used by these three economies to transfer resources between the farm and nonfarm sectors are inefficient.