In recent years increased emphasis has been placed on a range of "non-trade" concerns and their implications for the move towards freer trade. We review the basis of several of these concerns, focusing particularly on multifunctionality. The simple view of a fixed proportions relationship...

Despite the failure of the U.N. Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009 efforts are continuing to reach agreement on binding global commitments on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. At the same time, efforts are still underway to conclude the Doha Round of trade negotiations through the...

The producer support estimate calculated by the OECD is widely misused as an indicator of distortions created by agricultural policies. In this paper we demonstrate rigorously that a change in the relative (percentage) PSE is not an accurate indicator of the implications of policy reform for...

A new round of trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) was launched in 2001. One of the major aims of the Doha Development Round is to reduce agricultural protection and impose greater discipline on domestic agricultural subsidies, particularly those that are the most trade...

We examine current rice policies in four major Asian countries (China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan), their relationship to current WTO disciplines, and to those proposed under the Doha negotiations. WTO disciplines have prompted some changes in rice policies, but disciplines of domestic support are...

Although the United States has typically been in a position to import ethanol, corn-based ethanol exports are surging as the domestic market becomes saturated and world prices rise due to high prices for sugar, the competing global feedstock. The U.S. is now the world’s leading ethanol...

Agricultural trade problems have been receiving increased attention in the United States for the last few years. The reason is obvious. After a decade during which the value of agricultural exports grew from $8 billion annually to a peak of nearly $44 billion in 1981, both quantities and values...