We study the dynamics of optimal trade policy in a model with costly inter-sectoral adjustment of labour, where migrants pay less than the marginal social cost of migration. If workers have rational expectations, a future tariff has an announcement effect on the current migration decision. If...

Optimal distortions for the agricultural sector are calculated taking as given distortions in the nonagricultural sector. The calculations use a general equilibrium model and assume that the sole criterion is economic efficiency. For most agricultural commodities, existing distortions should be...

We analyze a model in which a government uses a second best policy to affect the reallocation of labor, following a change in relative prices. We consider two extreme cases, in which the government has either unlimited or negligible ability to commit to future actions. We explain why the ability...

We model the situation where two large countries impose either tariffs or quotas and a third large country remains passive. The introduction of the third country overturns results from two-country models. Stable quota equilibria are capable of reproducing the equilibrium price under tariffs, and...

The effect of risk aversion on Nash equilibrium trade restrictions is studied using numerical methods. An increase in a nation's level of risk aversion can lead to either an increase or decrease in its equilibrium restriction and either an increase or decrease in its rival's restriction. The...

The paper develops a procedure for decomposing changes in agricultural price gaps, defined as the difference between a commodity's domestic producer and border prices. Two decomposition approaches are presented, depending on whether policy allows transmission from changes in trade prices and...

The United States, Canada and the Cairns Group proposed disciplines on distorting domestic support in agriculture at the WTO Committee on Agriculture in July and September 2002. This paper assesses the key features of the 2002 proposals: green box provisions, blue box provisions, de minimis...

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how consumers in Canada, like those in the United States and Europe, have changed over the last ten years and the impact this is having on how agricultural commodities are being produced, transformed, distributed and traded. It will also be important to...