Foot‐and‐mouth disease and the Mexican cattle industry

The objective of this article is to analyze the domestic and international effects of a hypothetical foot‐and‐mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in the Mexican cattle industry. A discrete time dynamic optimization model of the Mexican cattle sector is specified, and linked to domestic and international markets. Economic consequences of FMD outbreaks are simulated over time and under different scenarios. Specific findings and general policy recommendations are provided. The study reports a range of outbreaks from localized to large scale and suggests that changes in economic surplus due to FMD range from a positive net gain of $0.89 to $1.6 billion to a net loss of about $67 billion, depending on the specific mitigation strategy and outbreak scenario.     

Optimal surveillance against foot‐and‐mouth disease: the case of bulk milk testing in Australia

Previous foot‐and‐mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks and simulation‐based analyses suggest substantial payoffs from detecting an incursion early. However, no economic measures for early detection have been analysed in an optimising framework. We investigate the use of bulk milk testing (BMT) for active surveillance against an FMD incursion in Australia. We find that BMT can be justified, but only when the FMD entry probability is sufficiently high or the cost of BMT is low. However, BMT is well suited for post‐outbreak surveillance, to shorten the length of time and size of an epidemic and to facilitate an earlier return to market.     

我国水产品国际贸易顺差的成因及其影响

在分析我国水产品国际贸易状况的基础上,本文对导致我国水产品贸易顺差的原因进行了分析。并分析了水产品贸易顺差对我国渔业经济发展可能产生的影响,提出了降低巨额贸易顺差带来短期冲击的几点建议。     

Unconstrained trade: The impact of EU cage bans on exports of poultry-keeping equipment

This study evaluates the impact of conventional cage bans for laying hens in the EU on exports of poultry-keeping equipment. Using detailed data on international trade in poultry-keeping equipment combined with an event study regression approach yields several new findings. The results suggest that the cage bans were associated with an increase in intra-EU trade, and also an increase in exports of poultry equipment from EU member states to non-EU countries where conventional cages are still permitted. The results suggest that some banned cages were likely exported to countries outside the EU to be used in egg production.     

European Agriculture after Brexit: Does Anyone Benefit from the Divorce?

The UK exited the EU on 31 January 2020, with a transition period agreed as part of the Withdrawal Agreement. During this transition period the UK and the EU will decide on their future trading relationship. No matter what form this relationship takes, there will be disturbances to agri‐food markets. This study analyses four different scenarios with increasing barriers to trade, ranging from a very close relationship similar to the European Economic Area to a distant relationship in which the UK and EU trade on Most Favoured Nation terms, using the EU focused global agricultural sector model CAPRI. In the UK, food prices will increase in all scenarios, making consumers in the UK the biggest losers. Only in a free trade agreement scenario does the UK show an unambiguous positive net welfare gain in just the agri‐food sector. In the case of the European Economic Area scenario, which assumes continued access to the single market, the net welfare impact would depend on the size of the UK’s continued contribution to the EU. In the EU, declining food prices would benefit consumers but the sum of the loss in farmers’ incomes and the UK’s EU CAP contribution would be much greater than the consumer’s gain. These impacts in agricultural markets under different future trade arrangements will also be influenced by the UK’s agricultural policy changes in direct payments as well as by possible further UK trade liberalisation after the end of the transition period.     

Long-run impacts of trade shocks and export competitiveness: Evidence from the U.S. BSE event

This paper examines how comparative advantages of major beef exporters changed following the 2003 bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) outbreak, which significantly disrupted the U.S. beef trade until approximately 2007. Using longitudinal data on beef export values and constructed revealed comparative advantage measures, we show that while some measures of the long-run impacts of BSE on U.S. beef export competitiveness have returned to pre-2003 levels, the U.S.’s comparative advantage has not. We also examine a hypothetical scenario of no BSE event in 2003 and predict that in the absence of the BSE outbreak, the U.S. beef sector would have been increasingly more competitive by 2017 than it actually was. Long-term trade competitiveness may not simply return to normal even after a short-term disruption.     

Impacts of Australia’s free trade agreements on trade in agricultural products: an aggregative and disaggregative analysis

The importance of free trade agreements (FTAs) has been increasing as such agreements help reduce barriers to trade. This paper estimates the agricultural trade creation and export diversion effects of Australia’s free trade agreements (FTAs) at the aggregate and disaggregate levels, using the Poisson pseudo‐maximum‐likelihood (PPML) estimator. It includes 24 of Australia’s major trading partner countries comprising FTA and non‐FTA members and covers 22 years from 1996 to 2017. The heteroscedasticity robust regression error specification test (RESET) confirms the relevance of PPML over the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) estimator. Results showed that China–Australia, Korea–Australia, Australia–USA and Japan–Australia have larger trade creation effects in the agricultural sector. At the commodity level, variation in trade creation effects is estimated from the different trade agreements. Among the selected commodities, the larger effects were generated in trade in sugar and wine by the implementation of the majority of the trade agreements. Overall, the trade creation was greater than the export diversion of the FTAs. The findings of the study have implications for Australia’s future trade agreements.     

Should Australia be concerned by Beijing’s trade threats: modelling the economic costs of a restriction on imports of Australian coal

A country’s economic dependence on its trade with various other countries is often expressed in terms of trade values and shares. A country’s vulnerability to economic coercion by the countries with which it trades is similarly expressed in such terms. Using the recent issues relating to Australia’s coal trade with China as an example, we propose a better framework for assessing vulnerability to coercive trade instruments. We argue that the capacity for a given export trade to fund real consumption is a superior indicator of economic vulnerability than the simple value of the underlying trade flow. Our framework takes account of trade diversion, foreign capital ownership, the terms of trade, resource mobility, and capital and production tax rates. Using this framework, we demonstrate that the damage from trade sanction is far less than might be expected from a simple focus on the value of the affected trade flow alone.     

US—Mexico fresh vegetable trade: the effects of trade liberalization and economic growth

Studies of US‐Mexico vegetable trade have generally emphasized the importance of US tariffs in determining the competitive advantage of US producers. Even so, research has identified at least four factors related primarily to the different levels of economic development in the US and Mexico that also have important effects on US‐Mexico agricultural trade in general and fresh vegetable trade in particular. These include the differential growth rates of US and Mexican real wages, production technology (yields), and per capita income as well as cyclical movements in the real Mexican Peso/US Dollar exchange rate. This study examines the relative contribution of NAFTA and the development‐related factors to likely future changes in US fresh vegetable imports from Mexico. The analysis employs an econometric simulation model of US and Mexican markets for five fresh vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, bell peppers, and onions) accounting for 80% of US fresh vegetable imports. The results suggest that the 1994–1995 Peso devaluation rather than NAFTA was primarily responsible for the sharp increase in US imports of Mexican vegetables observed in the first years following the implementation of NAFTA. Over time, however, the results suggest that differences in the growth rates of US and Mexican production yields and, to a lesser extent, of US and Mexican real incomes and/or real wage rates could plausibly contribute more to the future growth of US tomato, squash, and onion imports from Mexico than the trade liberalizing effects of NAFTA.     

Measuring the Trade Restrictiveness of Domestic Support using the EU Common Agricultural Policy as an Example

We develop an index that measures the overall trade effects of domestic support payments. Our index is based on the Mercantilist Trade Restrictiveness Index (MTRI) and is capable of analysing the development of the trade restrictiveness of domestic support payments over time and across countries. It facilitates the evaluation of agricultural policy reforms introducing changes in the composition of domestic support payments. We conduct this analysis with a computable general equilibrium model that is extended to depict detailed agricultural policies using the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union (EU) as an example. For the representation of agricultural policies, we updated the underlying database by incorporating detailed EU domestic support payments taken from the OECD Producer Support Estimate (PSE) tables and reconcile PSE data with the WTO classification scheme. Our index confirms a decrease in trade distortion stemming from the implementation of decoupled support in the EU. In addition, the trade-equivalent protection rate shows that the trade restrictiveness of domestic support payments depends on the assumptions made with regard to the degree of decoupling of those payments.     

Drivers of vertical intra‐industry trade: the case of the Hungarian agri‐food sector

This article investigates the drivers of vertical intra‐industry trade (VIIT) in Hungarian agri‐food trade with the European Union (EU). It identifies three possible ways to measure intra‐industry trade (IIT) flows (GHM, FF, and N methods) and defines six hypotheses to test for the drivers of VIIT with three panel data models (static, dynamic, and FEVD). The results suggest that factor endowments are negatively, while economic size is positively and significantly related to VIIT. Distance and VIIT were found to be negatively related as is commonly the case in the standard gravity model. It was also found that VIIT is greater if a New Member State (NMS) is exporting agri‐food produce to an NMS, while EU accession has ambiguously influenced the share of VIIT. In general, it seems that our results are independent from model estimations and interestingly they do not differ considerably as we a priori expected. Moreover, our results seem surprisingly robust across various measurements of ITT.     

Re‐evaluating the Harbinson Proposal – Prospects for the EU25: A Note

In this study, we use the Harbinson Proposal and July Framework to compare a ‘likely’ Doha scenario with a realistic baseline. The novelty of this study is that we focus exclusively on the trade‐led welfare impacts in selected EU member states. The important features of this note are the: (i) usage of the latest Global Trade Analysis Project (version 6) data; (ii) focus on EU25 regions incorporating all major Common Agricultural Policy instruments and reforms; and (iii) inclusion of binding tariff overhangs into the Harbinson tariff reductions. Results show the damping effects of tariff‐binding overhangs on welfare outcomes. This and other factors which limit the gains to liberalisation mean that the EU25 only realises 10% of its long‐run welfare gain potential, as defined by complete liberalisation.     

Role of international politics on agri‐food trade: Evidence from US–Canada bilateral relations

A well‐functioning trade relationship between Canada and the United States is crucial to the economic vitality of the Canadian agri‐food industry. However, agri‐food trade is more susceptible than other sectors to political interventions. The Trump presidency has strained Canada–US relations and his trade policy actions have significantly increased trade restrictions and trade policy uncertainty and undermined the rules‐based global trading system. We examine the pattern of agri‐food trade between the two countries and find that the upward trajectory of bilateral agri‐food trade ended in 2013. Although this flatlining predates the Trump administration, we show that Trump increased trade policy uncertainty starting in 2017 and likely impacted further expansion of trade. We examine what might change under the Biden presidency and argue that the new administration is likely to restore strong relationships with allies and work to rebuild important international institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO). Although protectionist forces will continue to impact bilateral agri‐food trade, we expect closer political ties between a Biden administration and the Canadian Prime Minister. This should have a positive effect on the Canadian agri‐food industry by reducing trade uncertainties, thereby increasing agri‐food trade between Canada and the United States.     

Domestic Support and Border Measures for Processed Horticultural Products

In horticultural markets, trade barriers often apply to the processed products whereas domestic support applies to farm-produced raw commodities. Here we assess the effects of such trade barriers and domestic support by simulating the effects of policy reform on global processing tomato markets, which are faced with modest processed product tariffs and high domestic support in the European Union (EU). Both protection and EU subsidy drive down world welfare, but we find that reducing import tariffs for tomato products would yield greater effects on markets and larger welfare impacts outside Europe than would reductions in EU domestic support.     

青岛与湛江水产品国际贸易的SWOT分析

本文运用SWOT战略分析工具系统地分析了青岛与湛江两市在水产品国际贸易上具有的内部优势和劣势、面临的外部机遇和挑战。笔者认为两市虽然存在一定程度的竞争,但互补性是主要方面,加强合作将会达到一个共赢的结果,并提出了应该采取的战略对策。     

Country‐Specific Determinants of Horizontal and Vertical Intra‐industry Agri‐food Trade: The Case of the EU New Member States

Intra‐industry trade (IIT) has become a widespread phenomenon with a growing role in international trade, though agricultural trade is usually neglected in empirical works. This article identifies the determinants of horizontal and vertical intra‐industry agri‐food trade between New Member States (NMS) and the EU‐27 in 1999–2010, by applying static and dynamic models with different specifications to panel data. Results show that IIT is mainly of a vertical nature in the NMS, though the majority of NMS export low quality agri‐food products to EU‐27 markets. Factor endowments are negatively related to agri‐food horizontal intra‐industry trade (HIIT), but positively to vertical intra‐industry trade (VIIT). Economic size is positively and significantly related to both types of IIT, while distance and IIT are found to be negatively related in both cases. Results also suggest that HIIT and VIIT are greater if a New Member State exports agri‐food products to another NMS while EU accession has had positive and significant impacts on both HIIT and VIIT, suggesting that economic integration fosters IIT.