Collectively or individually, countries are likely to implement policies designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Experience from tradable quota schemes suggests that emissions trading could significantly reduce the costs of emission limits. The Kyoto Protocol provides the framework for a...

Sub - Sahran African (SSA) countries have seen sharp declines in their shares of agricultural export markets. But their export dependence on the most important crops - coffee and cocoa - has increased. Comparisons in the region and with countries outside the region show the importance of...

Farming households that differ in their ability, or willingness to take on risks are likely to make different decisions when allocating resources, and effort among income-producing activities, with consequences for productivity. The authors measure voluntary, and involuntary departures from...

Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa remain dependent on a few primary commodities -- coffee, cocoa, cotton, sugar, tea, and tobacco -- for a large share of export earnings. Because demand for these commodities is price-inelastic, production and export expansion can depress world prices and...

Venezuela's agricultural sector is heavily regulated and protected. As part of structural adjustment, the government is considering major reform of its agricultural trade policies. The strategy is to introduce competition into the economy by removing government price controls and liberalizing...

Lessons from six case studies illustrate the complex relationships between international trade, vulnerable ecologies and the poor. The studies, taken from Africa, Asia and Latin America and conducted by local researchers, are set in places where the poor live in close proximity to ecologies that...

Reviewing cross-country experience with sugar policies, and policy reform, the authors conclude that long-standing government interventions - rooted in historical trade arrangements, fear of shortages, and conflicting interests between growers, and sugar mills - often displace both the markets,...

In 1987 the European Community began the ambitious task of forging a single market for goods and services across the national borders of its member states by 1992. Substantive reform of the Community's Common Agricultural Policy - necessary for the full integration of existing markets - has not...

In two decades, Indonesia has become the world's second largest producer of palm oil and coconut oil. But Indonesia remains a price-taking producer of perennial (tree) crops in a market dominated by annual crops, particularly soybeans. Indonesia has expanded production despite a Byzantine...

The three goals of recent agricultural pricing policies in Mexico for maize have been to raise farm income and crop profitability by boosting domestic prices through trade restrictions, to provide some price certainty at planting time, and to reduce year-to-year variations in maize prices. The...