Rapid economic growth in China has boosted its demand for commodities. At the same time, many commodity sectors have experienced declining demand from high-income northern economies. This paper examines two hypotheses of the consequences of this shift in final markets for the organization of...

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,...

What are the prospects for demand for the main foodstuffs, particularly rice, in the Philippines? Countries which have traditionally consumed rice as the basic staple such as Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan are eating more wheat and wheat products. There is also a shift towards...

Groundnut products are of central economic importance to millions of smallholders in Africa, India, and Southern China. The products generate 60 percent of rural cash income and account for about 70 percent of the rural labor force in Senegal and The Gambia. Groundnut trade is heavily distorted,...

The author investigates the effects of a marginal tax reform on household welfare in Mexico. He estimates the extent to which Mexican households react to changes in prices, and uses the estimates to simulate changes in social welfare resulting from marginal tax reform. Results indicate that...

Between World War II and the early 1970s, Tanzania developed one of the world's largest cashew nut industries. In 1973-74, marketed production reached 145,000 tons (about 30 percent of world production), with cashews providing an important source of income to some 250,000 farmers and being the...

Ghana's cocoa production has declined in the past 25 years from half the world market share to about one tenth of the market. This has been partly due to policies that overvalued the domestic currency and heavily taxed cocoa exports. This study addresses the dilemma Ghana's government faces: how...

Urbanization and income growth explain the increasing consumption of beef, pork, chicken, and wheat flour, and the proportionate decline in the consumption of rice, barley and fish. Continuing urbanization and income growth should simply reinforce these trends. The same phenomenon is occurring...

Fernandes explores Colombian trade policy from 1977-91, a period of substantial variation in protection across industries, to examine whether increased exposure to foreign competition generates plant-level productivity gains. Using a large panel of manufacturing plants, she finds a strong...

The welfare effects of preferential trading agreements, are most directly linked to changes in trade prices - that is, the terms of trade. The authors use a simple strategic pricing game in segmented markets, to measure the effects of MERCOSUR on the pricing of"non-member"exports to the regional...