Impacts and policy responses to a commodity price boom: The case of Malawi, by Piero Conforti, Emanuele Ferrari and Alexander Sarris. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 27
This work analyzes the medium term effects of the recent commodity price spike in a typical Low-Income-Food-Deficit country, Malawi, as well as a set of possible policy responses. [ more... ]

Policy response to a commodity price boomunder structural constraints: The Case of Tanzania, by Alexander Sarris and Piero Conforti. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 26
This paper explores the impact of the recent soar in world commodity prices on economic activity and household welfare in Tanzania, and the possible policy responses to this shock. [ more... ]

WTO provisions in the context of responding to soaring food prices, by Ramesh Sharma and Panos Konandreas. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 25
This paper discusses certain WTO rules and provisions that have a bearing on response measures to the soaring world food prices. In doing so, it also reflects upon new rules that are being negotiated under the Doha Round. [ more... ]

China, India and AFTA: evolving bilateral agricultural trade and new opportunities through free trade agreements, by Ramesh Sharma. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 24
The purpose of this paper is to review the evolution of bilateral agricultural trade of China, India and AFTA of the ASEAN, and to discuss agricultural trade potentials that might result from bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) among these dynamic trading blocks. [ more... ]

Liberalizing trade under structural constraints in developing countries: A general equilibrium analysis of Tanzania. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 23.
This paper explores the impact of trade liberalization on growth and poverty alleviation in Tanzania, based on a single country computable general equilibrium (CGE) model that includes considerable factor disaggregation and household detail. [ more... ]

Threshold cointegration in the sugar-ethanol-oil price system in Brazil: evidence from nonlinear vector error correction models, by George Rapsomanikis and David Hallam. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 22.
In this paper, the possibility of nonlinear dynamic adjustment in the sugar-ethanol-oil nexus in Brazil is examined. [ more... ]

Estimating price elasticities of supply for cotton: a structural time-series approach, by Ben Shepherd. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 21.
The Kalman Filter is used to estimate a structural time-series model of cotton supply for 30 countries and 16 aggregated regions. [ more... ]

Market access and preferential trading schemes: evidence from selected developed and developing countries, by Piero Conforti and Luca Salvatici. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 20
This report is aimed at analyzing the degree of protection faced by exporters in the EU, Japan, the US, China, India and Brazil, and at identifying the contribution of products' groups to the observed degree of market access. [ more... ]

The role of agriculture in reducing poverty in Tanzania: A household perspective from rural Kilimanjaro and Ruvuma, by Alexander Sarris, Sara Savastano and Luc Christiaensen. FAO Commodities and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 19.
This paper explores how farm productivity affects poverty, and how various factor market constraints affect farm productivity. [ more... ]

Producer demand and welfare benefits of rainfall insurance in Tanzania, by Alexander Sarris, Panayiotis Karfakis and Luc Christiaensen. FAO Commodities and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 18.
This paper explores empirically the issue of the demand, namely the willingness to pay (WTP), for rainfall-based insurance, in the context of a poor agrarian economy, with rural households significantly dependent on agricultural commodity risks. [ more... ]

Household vulnerability in rural Tanzania, by Alexander Sarris and Panayiotis Karfakis. FAO Commodities and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 17.
This paper develops a measure of rural household vulnerability that combines existing approaches to estimating idiosyncratic risks with an approach to measuring covariate risk arising from crop production. [ more... ]

The use of organized commodity markets to manage food import price instability and risk, by Alexander Sarris, Piero Conforti and Adam Prakash. FAO Commodities and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 16.
The paper considers the possibility of insuring the price risks of wheat and maize imports of low-income food-deficit countries (LIFDCs), as a way to insure one part of their external commodity risks. [ more... ]

The impact of domestic and international commodity price volatility on agricultural income instability in Ghana, Vietnam and Peru, by George Rapsomanikis and Alexander Sarris. FAO Commodities and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 15.
The extent to which commodity price volatility affects the income of producing households and their vulnerability to poverty and food insecurity depends on household diversification patterns and the degree of their exposure to markets. [ more... ]

Linkages between domestic and international maize markets, and market based strategies for hedging maize import price risks in Tanzania, by Alexander Sarris and Ekaterini Mantzou. FAO Commodities and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 14.
The paper analyzes the domestic regional maize markets in the United Republic of Tanzania as far as their spatial integration is concerned, as well as their influence from world prices. [ more... ]

Food import risk in Malawi: simulating a hedging scheme for Malawi food imports using historical data, by Wouter Zant. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 13.
During the 1980s and 1990s least developed countries (LDCs) encountered increasing difficulties in maintaining national food security. [ more... ]

The effect of direct payments of the OECD countries in world agricultural markets. Evidence from partial and general equilibrium frameworks, by Piero Conforti. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 12.
The effect of direct payments granted to OECD farmers on world agricultural markets is one of the controversial issues in the Doha Development Agenda. This paper aims at providing additional evidence on the range of effects that such payments may have under general and partial equilibrium assumptions. [ more... ]

The impact of import surges: country case study results for Senegal and Tanzania, by Ramesh Sharma, David Nyange, Guillaume Duteutre and Nancy Morgan. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 11.
Measuring the impacts of import surges is a difficult task, but simple case studies illustrate some of the fundamental issues. [ more... ]

Agricultural trade liberalization in the Doha round. Alternative scenarios and strategic interaction between developed and developing countries, by Piero Conforti and Luca Salvatici. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 10.
The paper explores the impact of an agricultural trade agreement, simulating alternative liberalization scenarios, and studying the outcomes of the interaction between the strategies of country groups in the negotiations. [ more... ]

The EU cotton policy regime and the implications of the proposed changes for producer welfare, Giannis Karagiannis. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 9.
A new European Union (EU) policy regime has been announced for cotton for introduction in 2005. The orientation is towards a scheme which includes a mix of coupled and decoupled measures [ more... ]

The impact of domestic and trade policies on the world cotton market. Daneswar Poonyth, Alexander Sarris, Ramesh Sharma and Shangnan Shui. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No.8.
There is a long tradition in the quantification of the impact of agricultural trade distortions on global markets, trade, and individual countries, notably in the context of the ongoing multilateral trade negotiations. [ more... ]

Price transmission in selected agricultural markets, by Piero Conforti. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 7.
The paper is aimed at providing evidence on price transmission in a number of agricultural markets, both per se and in support of analytical efforts in the area of agricultural trade policy analysis. [ more... ]

The marketing potential of date palm fruits in the European market, by Pascal Liu. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 6.
Europe, and in particular the European Union (EU) is a key market for date exporters. [ more... ]

World markets for organic citrus and citrus juices, by Pascal Liu. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 5.
The world market for certified organic citrus (fresh and juice) is presently small and production accounts for less than 1 percent of global citrus production. [ more... ]

Agricultural Policy Indicators, by Timothy E. Josling and Alberto Valdés. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 4.
This paper outlines a methodological approach for use by FAO to collect, analyze and monitor agricultural policy indicators (API) for developing countries. [ more... ]

Quantifying appropriate levels of the WTO bound tariffs on basic food products in the context of the Development Box proposals, by Ramesh Sharma. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 3.
Many developing countries in their WTO negotiating proposals on market access have called for the option for them to set appropriate levels of bound tariffs, as special and differential treatment, for selected products vital for food and livelihood security. [ more... ]

The WTO and environmental and social standards, certification and labelling in agriculture, by Cora Dankers. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 2.
This paper reflects on the GATT/WTO legal aspects of social and environmental standards and voluntary certification and labelling programmes in agriculture. [ more... ]

The Brazilian ethanol programme: impacts on world ethanol and sugar markets, by Tatsuji Koizumi. FAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper No. 1.
The sugar market in Brazil has a strong relationship with the ethanol market. The Brazilian government has now abolished all the sugar market intervention measures except for the control on the ethanol-gasoline blend ratio. [ more... ]