Agricultural trade reform and poverty reduction in developing countries

Kym Anderson

The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series from IIIS

Abstract: This paper offers an economic assessment of the opportunities and challenges provided by the WTO’s Doha Development Agenda, particularly through agricultural trade liberalization, for low-income countries seeking to trade their way out of poverty. After discussing links between poverty, economic growth and trade, it reports modelling results showing that farm product markets remain the most costly of all goods market distortions in world trade. It focuses on what such reform might mean for developing countries both without and with their involvement in the multilateral trade negotiations. What becomes clear is that if those countries want to maximize their benefits from the Doha round, they need also to free up their own domestic product and factor markets so their farmers are better able to take advantage of new market-opening opportunities abroad. Other concerns of low-income countries about farm trade reform also are addressed: whether there would be losses associated with tariff preference erosion, whether food-importing countries would suffer from higher food prices in international markets, whether China’s WTO accession will provide an example of trade reform aggravating poverty via cuts to prices received by Chinese farmers, and the impact on food security and poverty alleviation.

Keywords: WTO; agricultural protection; trade liberalization; poverty alleviation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-dev
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Chapter: Agricultural trade reform and poverty reduction in developing countries (2005)
Working Paper: Agricultural trade reform and poverty reduction in developing countries (2004)
Working Paper: Agricultural Trade Reform and Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries (2002)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp014

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