Food prices in international markets spiked upward in 2008, doubling or more in a matter of months. Evidence is still being compiled on policy responses over the following two years, but new time series estimates of government intervention for the previous five decades allow insights into past...

Trade negotiators and policy advisors are keen to know the relative contributions of different farm policy instruments to international trade and economic welfare. Nominal rates of assistance or producer support estimates are incomplete indicators, especially when (as in many developing...

Australia's lacklustre economic growth performance in the first four decades following World War II was in part due to an antitrade, antiprimary sector bias in government assistance policies. This paper provides new annual estimates of the extent of those biases since 1946 and their gradual...

Phasing out distortionary government subsidies and barriers to international trade will yield extraordinarily high benefits relative to any adjustment costs, notwithstanding the considerable reforms that have already taken place over the past two decades. The present paper surveys recent...