Effect of Sugar Price Policy on U.S. Imports of Processed Sugar-containing Foods

The relationship between U.S. and world sugar prices, and U.S. import demand for four categories of sugar-containing products is examined. Results from econometric estimation indicate that U.S. intervention in the sugar market has helped to increase U.S. imports of some sugar-containing products, but that increased disposable income has played a more important role. Although some developing countries have benefitted from U.S. sugar policy by increasing their exports of sugar-containing products to the United States, U.S. sugar policy has helped imports from developed countries proportionately more than those from developing countries as a whole.     

Tariff quota administration in China's grain markets: An empirical assessment

In 2016, the U.S. launched a trade dispute against China at the World Trade Organization, arguing that China has been restricting its grain imports via tariff quota administration. Despite sharp criticisms by the U.S., the extent to which the grain imports were restricted in China remains largely unknown, primarily due to that China's grain import behaviors are still under-researched. The U.S. grain export sector might actually gain little from China's grain trade liberalization in the short run, since China has become less import dependent on the U.S. through the pursuit of import diversification. In this context, this article aims to quantify impacts of the tariff quota administration on China's grain imports from its trading partners. We calculate ad valorem tariff equivalents of the tariff quota administration and then estimate import demand elasticities using a source differentiated import demand model. We find that the tariff quota administration might have reduced China's quota fill rates for the grain commodities by 10–35% during 2013–2017. In particular, the U.S. wheat exports to China were largely negatively affected. We also find that the tariff quota administration in China acts like a variable import levy—its import restrictiveness varies negatively with world prices, leading to lower import demand elasticities.     

Imports versus Domestic Production: A Demand System Analysis of the U.S. Red Wine Market

The U.S. wine market experienced rapid growth in all facets—production, consumption, exports, and imports—over the past decade. Red wine imports more than tripled while consumption of domestically produced red wines doubled. This research estimates demand elasticities of U.S. red wine imports from five countries accounting for over 90% of imports—Italy, France, Spain, Australia, and Chile—using the first-difference version of the almost ideal demand system (AIDS). These elasticities are compared with those for domestically produced red wine. Results for conditional expenditure elasticities indicate that the U.S. red wine industry gains over imports when U.S. consumers' total expenditures on red wine increase. However, comparing own- and cross-price elasticities reveals an increase in the price of U.S. red wine results in a decline in quantity demanded six times greater than for French and Italian red wines and over 20 times greater than other import countries, thus harming the U.S. red wine industry. Empirical results suggest that U.S. red-wine producers could increase their total revenue by decreasing prices, while Italian and French producers can increase total revenues by increasing them.     

Forecasting Japan's Frozen Potato Imports

THe U.S. potato industry is the main supplier of frozen potatoes to a rapidly growing Japanese food service market. A two-stage budgeting procedure was employed to estimate total Japanese imports of frozen potatoes and imports by country of origin. Japanese demand for frozen potatoes was found to be own-price inelastic and income elastic. The complementary relationship between hamburger and frozen potatoes suggests that replacement of tariffs for beef import quotas will impact the Japanese potato market. Imports from the United States are expected to increase substantially and remain in constant proportion to total imports.     

The Market Structure and Price Competition in China's Wheat Import Market:

This paper reveals that wheat exporters to China compete in an imperfectly competitive market. U.S. wheat exports face strong price competition from Argentina, Australia, Canada, and the European Community, but has a highly elastic demand in China. By adopting an aggressive promotion policy, the U.S. could reduce the market shares of Argentina and Canada. China would shift to wheat from Argentina, Australia, and Canada if U.S. wheat exports were interrupted because of high prices or non-price trade frictions. An expansion in China's wheat imports would accrue to wheat from Argentina and the U.S.     

Linking of U.S. monetary policy and exchange rates to world soybean markets

The linkage between macroeconomic policies and agricultural commodity trade has become an important research issue of agricultural economists. This paper investigates the macroeconomic linkage of soybean trade competition between the exporting countries of the United States, Brazil, and Argentina in the EC-12 and Japan import markets. It is argued that U.S. monetary growth may have important impacts on the competitive position of U.S. soybean exports through exchange rates. Two relationships are investigated: (a) the effects of U.S. monetary growth on the agricultural trade weighted exchange rates, and (b) the responsiveness of agricultural commodity prices and U.S. exports to exchange rate movements. Results indicate that a weak dollar increases imports of soybeans and soymeal significantly which serves to increase the equilibrium world price and increase both U.S. and Brazil/Argentina exports in the long run. However, during periods of more expansionary U.S. monetary policy there is little evidence of significant increases in market share position for U.S. soybeans and soymeal in world markets.     

U.S. Agricultural Trade with Mexico

Abstract

This study examined the effects of exchange rates, economic growth, trade liberalization, and export assistance programs on U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico. The Commodity Credit Corporation's GSM-102 Export Credit Guarantee Program reduces the risk associated with export financing and payment. The impact of the export credit guarantee program on U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico was estimated in an import demand model using quarterly data from 1980 to 1996. The results indicate that for every $1 of export credit guarantees, Mexican imports of U.S. farm products increased $0.30. Real income growth in Mexico, however, was the most important factor in the expansion of U.S. exports. Trade liberalization under NAFTA also increased U.S. exports to Mexico.     

Growth in horticultural trade: Japan's market for developing countries

This paper explores possibilities and opportunities of expansion of horticultural exports from developing countries through an investigation on a rapidly growing market, Japan, as an example among major promising markets. In this paper six horticultural commodities are selected to analyze, emphasizing on exports from developing countries. Observations on Japan's horticultural imports make us presume that consumers differentiate products by place of production. Therefore, import behavior is considered in a two-stage budgeting procedure. The second-stage demands for imports from different sources are specified in an almost ideal demand system (AIDS) model and estimated statistically as well as the first-stage import demand equations. The estimated second-stage AIDS equations show that the magnitude of own-price coefficients varies with the source of imports and so does that of expenditure coefficients. Therefore, the characteristics of import demand on a commodity basis, which are captured by the estimates of the first-stage import demand equations, are not equally transmitted to the demand for imports by source in each commodity. The estimated coefficients of the first-stage import demand and the second-stage AIDS equations were combined to obtain the total effects of price and income changes on imports by source. The calculated own-price elasticities are greater than one in absolute value in ten of the 15 cases and so are the calculated income elasticities in twelve cases. The large elasticities promise suppliers that they benefit from Japan's income growth and that they increase their earnings if they can reduce the price by lowering their costs. However, factors in non-price competition also play import roles in the import growth. In this paper, the importance of sales promotions by exporters and preshipment inspections was indicated in the cases of mangoes and cut flowers. Other factors such as market structure and public infrastructure for post-harvest activities were also discussed.     

An econometric analysis of U.S. vital wheat gluten imports

In light of the wheat wet milling industry's development in the E.C. and of the prominent role U.S imports play in the international market for wheat gluten, this paper discusses the international market for wheat gluten, an important component of processed grain products. An econometric analysis of the U.S. import demand for wheat gluten is undertaken. The price of flour, income, and the U.S. value of wheat protein are found to be important determinants of wheat gluten imports.     

How sensitive is U.S. agricultural trade to the bilateral exchange rate? Evidence from bulk,intermediate, and consumer‐oriented products

This article examines the dynamic effects of changes in bilateral exchange rates on changes in bilateral trade of bulk, intermediate, and consumer‐oriented agricultural products between the United States and its 10 major trading partners. We find that, for consumer‐oriented products, U.S. exports are highly sensitive to bilateral exchange rates in both the short and long run, while U.S. imports are mostly responsive only in the short run. For bulk products, on the other hand, U.S. exports and imports are relatively insensitive to exchange rate changes in both the short and long run. For intermediate products, exports and imports are responsive to exchange rate changes in the short run, but not in the long run. It is also found that income of the United States and its trading partners has a significant effect on U.S. exports and imports of the three types of agricultural products in both the short and long run.     

A COMPARISON OF TOBIT AND OLS ESTIMATES OF JAPANESE PEANUT IMPORT DEMAND

A Tobit analysis is applied to estimate Japanese peanut imports under quota restrictions for the period 1973–1988, and to assess the bias when the presence of quota is ignored by using OLS estimation. The results show that biased estimates are obtained by using OLS in the presence of quota restrictions.     

China and Taiwan access to the World Trade Organization: implications for U.S. agriculture and trade

This paper investigates the impact of China's and Taiwan's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on U.S. and world agricultural trade by means of a 12-region, 14-sector Computable General Equilibrium model for world trade and production. The simulation results show that integrating China and Taiwan into the global trading system could induce more competition on labor-intensive Products and reduce their prices. It could drive up the demand for capital and skill-intensive manufactured goods, thus further improving industrial countries' terms of trade. The expansion of labor-intensive sectors in China could also induce contraction in agricultural exports from China and increase its net agricultural imports by as much as US$9 billion annually, causing food and agricultural exports from other regions to increase. Total U.S. food and agricultural exports could increase by about US$2.4 billion annually, with the non-grain crop sectors gaining the most. The biggest winner from China's WTO accession is China itself. WTO membership could bring a net welfare gain of about US$30 billion a year for China, a substantial benefit compared with the gains for the USA (US$8.5 billion).     

Dairy Tariff-Quota Liberalization: Contrasting Bilateral and Most Favored Nation Reform Options

A highly disaggregated, "tariff line," source-differentiated, partial equilibrium model of U.S. specialty cheese imports is developed to investigate reform options for tariff-rate quotas (TRQs). A mixed-complementarity framework is used to represent bilateral and most favored nation (MFN) tariff quotas. The impacts of liberalizing U.S. specialty cheese imports via bilateral and MFN quota expansions, out-of-quota tariff cuts, and simultaneous liberalization scenarios are evaluated. We find that the path of liberalization is quite different, depending on the reform approach undertaken, particularly if the United States adopted an MFN quota administration mechanism for specialty cheese imports.     

Price Discrimination and Pricing to Market Behavior of Canadian Canola Exporters

The role of exchange rate fluctuation on the pricing behavior of Canadian canola exporters to Japan, Mexico, and the U.S. is examined using a model identifying noncompetitive and exchange rate related pricing behavior. Price discrimination was identified for Canadian canola exports to the three destinations over the period of 1993–99. Results also suggest that Pricing to Market strategies were employed for Japanese imports. Canadian canola exporters used local currency price stabilization to dampen the effects of relative price changes in the Japanese currency, perhaps linked to the large size of Japanese imports relative to Mexico and the U.S.     

中国进口俄罗斯木质林产品贸易波动原因分析

基于联合国贸易数据库林产品数据,应用恒定市场份额模型,探究1998—2018年造成中国进口俄罗斯木质林产品贸易波动现象的影响因素。结果表明:1998—2018年,中国进口俄罗斯木质林产品贸易集中于资源密集型和需求增长较快的产品,且贸易波动呈现出明显的阶段性;中国进口俄罗斯木质林产品总额波动现象受产品结构、市场规模、竞争力等多种因素影响,其中中国进口结构和国内市场需求是贸易波动的主要因素;此外,中俄林产品贸易还受到世界经济环境的影响。因此,中国应寻找其他进口渠道,减少对俄罗斯供给的依赖,保障中国木质林产品产业安全,密切关注两国经济政策变化,及时调整进口贸易策略,促进中俄木质林产品贸易的健康稳定发展。     

中国木材产品贸易及其对林业的影响

以木材产品贸易对林业的影响为核心,对木材产品的进口和出口情况进行详细的统计分析,并运用弹性理论分析林业产值对木材产品进口和出口的敏感度,以此来初步证明木材产品贸易对林业的影响。研究表明,原木、锯材、刨花板、木家具、纸和纸制品的进口敏感度均高于木材总产品的进口敏感度1.382,尤其以刨花板和木家具的敏感度最大,为136.018,说明这些产品的进口额变化对林业产值变化的影响非常显著,进口额增加1%,将使林业产值成倍地增长。     

Would African Countries Benefit from the Termination of Kenya’s Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the EU? An Analysis of EU Demand for Imported Roses

This paper assesses the impact of Kenya’s preferential status on EU demand for imported roses by country. Import demand equations were estimated using a production version of the Rotterdam model in an Armington framework. With the expiration of the Lomé Convention, tariffs (up to 24%) on Kenyan roses were likely if an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) was not signed by January 2008. Roses from African countries not subject to tariffs were expected to displace Kenya’s exports in the future. However, results of this study showed that roses from African countries were complements in the EU market and those exports from Zimbabwe and Other African countries would have been negatively impacted if a Kenya–EU EPA was unsuccessful. Given the maximum import duty on Kenyan roses, EU imports from Kenya would decrease by 9.1% and imports from Zimbabwe and Other African countries would decrease by 6% and 4%, respectively.     

An Analysis of Removal of Agricultural Trade Barriers between the United States and Canada with Emphasis on the Southeast

A four-region, 23-commodity small world agricultural trade liberalization model within the SWOPSIM framework is used to measure the impact of tariff removal between the United States and Canada. The tariffs are simply defined as negative import subsidy equivalents in the model and are then removed from the trade prices. The model recalculates domestic supply and demand levels in all regions, rebalancing world trade, production, consumption and prices. In summary, the impacts of the Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement on selected commodity groups are significant. Canadian imports of beef and veal, poultry meat, soybean oil and fresh strawberries increase. Furthermore, the results indicate larger trade flows for selected products and declines in producer and consumer prices in Canada, U.S. and Southeast regions. Since the U.S. share of Canadian agricultural imports averaged 60% in the 1980s, the impact of trade liberalization will be greater in Canada in selected commodities than in the U. S. or the southeastern region, and Canadian dependence on the U.S. market will be increasing in the future. The tariff phaseout, together with a reduction in nontariff barriers and harmonizing of domestic agricultural policies, will create more export opportunities in selected commodities for both the United States and Canada, and will create the world's largest free trade market.     

Noneconomic Distortions in International Agricultural Trade:

A U.S. import demand model for palm oil empirically addresses the objectives of ascertaining whether significant shifts in U.S. import patterns for palm oil followed an American Soybean Association negative informational campaign against "fatty" tropical oils and whether factors such as exchange rates significantly affected the decline of U.S. palm oil imports after the campaign. Evidence suggests that structural change in U.S. import demand for palm oil followed commencement of the campaign, including significant changes in the own- and cross-price responsiveness of palm oil. Results also indicate that exchange rates did not contribute to declining U.S. palm oil imports.     

Agricultural trade in North America: Trade creation, regionalism and regionalisation

Trade creation in agricultural products is defined as a statistically significant positive break in the trend function of the growth in exports and imports between member countries. The present study attempts to determine the time of any break in the trend of real exports and imports between the Canada–USA Free Trade Agreement (CUSTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) member countries for the years 1980:I through 1999:II, and document the scale of the phenomenon. The present study finds trade creation only occurs in USA agricultural exports to Canada because of CUSTA. The results confirm the theory that the regionalism of NAFTA did not lead to regionalisation or an increasing share of intraregional international trade.