Protectionist instruments such as tariffs can distort the prices of traded goods. This paper explores the impact of specific (per-unit) duties on patterns of agricultural trade. Specific duties may encourage countries to export higher priced products, leading to an “Alchian-Allen effect” on...

Free trade has become a modern-day creed, accepted by both wealthy industrialized countries and many governments of developing countries as the generator of economic growth, development and employment. However, free trade has also been condemned by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in...

Recent analyses suggest that the impact of agricultural trade liberalization on developing countries will be very uneven. Simulations suggest that the effects of agricultural trade liberalization will be small, overall, and are likely to be negative for a significant number of developing...

The ongoing trade negotiations, unilateral trade concessions and obligations under the WTO are pushing the EU sugar regime to undertake reforms. These reforms will alter the positions of developing countries in the global sugar markets. A complete unilateral liberalisation of the EU sugar sector...

Tariff rate quotas (TRQs) have been introduced and legitimised as a market access instrument in the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA). TRQs combine both restriction of imports, and safeguard of current or preferential agricultural trade flows. By restricting the market access through...

Since the beginning of 2000s, in order to let poor people accede to meat consumption, several developing countries have opened their domestic chicken market to foreign imports, by reducing import tariffs. Thus local chicken meat competes with frozen pieces of chicken imported from the European...