We examine the impact of technical progress in agriculture on changes in measured poverty and aggregate welfare in a developing country. Using a small general equilibrium model, we show how the economic components of an observed change in poverty can be isolated to expose the significance of...

An empirically based, applied general equilibrium model is used to study the welfare and distributional effects of an export tax when the implementing country possesses some monopoly power in the world market. A method is demonstrated through which a general equilibrium model can be used to find...

Rice is Indonesia’s staple food and accounts for large shares of both consumers’ budgets and total employment. Until recently, Indonesia was the world’s largest importer, but rice import policy is now highly protectionist. Since early 2004, rice imports have been officially banned....

Indonesia has set the target that by the year 2020 its emissions of greenhouse gases will be reduced by 26 per cent relative to business-as-usual conditions. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of a subsidy to the use of land in forestry as a means of achieving this goal. The analysis uses a...

During economic development, agriculture declines as a proportion of aggregate national output. A number of theoretical explanations for this phenomenon have been advanced in the economic literature, but their relative historical significance has not been clear. This paper develops an...

The relationship between the effects of food aid and those of the completion of the Uruguay Round of the GATT are studied in this paper, focusing upon the food aid recipient countries, and taking Bangladesh as an illustrative example. It is argued that, among other factors, the magnitudes of...

The distributional effects of trade policies involving food are always controversial, particularly in countries for which staple foods are net imports. Indonesia is the world’s largest importer of its staple food, rice, and this commodity simultaneously accounts, in its consumption, for a...