The paper develops a composite index of GMO standards restrictiveness for 60 countries, assigning objective scores to six different regulatory dimensions. Using this index and its components, we empirically investigate the political and economic determinants of GMO regulations. Results show that...

We investigate the effect of electoral rules and forms of government on public policy outcomes using a new dataset on agriculture and food policies from 74 countries over the 1960-2005 period. Using both cross-sectional and panel data analyses we find robust evidence that the specific nature of...

Using a bilateral trade equation derived from a monopolistic competition model, we investigated market access reciprocity in food trade among the US, Canada, the EU and Japan. We explore country and industry-specific market access asymmetry through the border effect approach, re-challenging the...

This paper documents patterns in international trade costs in processed foods for a large cross-section of developing and developed countries, during the 1976-2000 period. A trade costs index is inferred from a micro-founded gravity equation that incorporates bilateral `iceberg?trade costs. For...

This paper deals with the quantification of GMO regulations on bilateral trade flows. A composite index of the 慶omplexity?of such regulations for sixty countries as well as an 憃bjective?score for six GMO regulatory sub-dimensions has been developed. Using a gravity model, we show how...