AGRICULTURE IN THE URUGUAY ROUND: AMBITIONS AND REALITIES

Agricultural trade policies are basically a function of domestic policy considerations which have produced high levels of support in many countries. New policy instruments such as direct payments, which are more demanding in terms of information costs but which distort resource allocation less, are becoming more attractive. Unilateral liberalisation is, however, unlikely. Freer trade is a public good which requires international collective action to be provided. Countries which have a clear-cut trade interest in liberalising markets for commodities they export can play the role of catalyst in international co-ordination. The existence of big players is a favourable factor. Hence, the drift of the Round towards a co-ordination of US-EC interests. Both political economy and trade interest considerations suggest that an agreement reached will have its main impact on crops which are widely traded. The main constraining factor of an agreement on EC and US agriculture will be the discipline it will impose on the use of export subsidies. Agriculture will still not come fully under GATT rules which apply to other sectors, but in the future the CAP will be more constrained by international commitments than in the past.     

Who Receives Farm Government Payments?

If we do not systematically attempt to collect data and assess distributional impacts, we shall always be surprised by the many unintended consequences of our public decisions. (Bonnen 1969, p. 447) Direct government payments to farmers have tripled in the last half of the 1980s. Market price support programs (for example, the Western Grain Transportation Act, among others) and supply management regulation continue to be topics of debate among policy analysts. Certainly the debate has become intensified by the discussions surrounding the Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement and the Uruguay Round of talks under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. When all census farms are distributed across gross sales classes, the “selected” programs included in this study tend to be more concentrated among the mid-sized farms than are aggregate gross sales. However, if one considers Prairie grain farms distributed across farm size classes measured in terms of grain acres, gross sales, net farm income (specifically, NCFIWF) and the net “benefits” of “selected” government programs are similarly concentrated. For example, Prairie farms with 320 to 599 acres of grain report 24% to 26% of each of these four items.²⁶ The “selected” programs included in this study tend to pay about the same size of payout per farm household, regardless of the size of household income. We obtain this result because farm size in terms of gross farm sales tends to be the same, regardless of the size of household total net income. Across the spectrum of farm financial stability classes, the net “benefit” of the “selected” programs in this study tend to be distributed similarly to gross farm sales. The results depend on exactly how one implements the classification but more than two thirds of gross sales and more than two thirds of net “benefits” of “selected” programs accrue to farms with a higher level of financial stability. Across the spectrum of rates of return on equity as an indicator of farm efficiency, about one third of gross sales and one third of net “benefits” of “ selected” programs accrue to farms with a rate of return on equity of 10% or more. The potential impact of deregulation of supply management depends on one‘ s assumption. Three scenarios are presented here and, in each case, both “winners” and “losers” are identified. Between 4% and 37% of households on farms with quota would move from above to below the Statistics Canada low-income cutoff (LICO), depending on the scenario under consideration. However, in each seen-ario, there are cases of households moving from below to above LICO as a result of our calculated impact of deregulating supply management. This paper takes its lead from Bonnen's observation about “unintended consequences.” We do not offer an “evaluation” of any government program. Our sole objective is to illustrate “distributional impacts” so that all individuals in the policy debate may speak from an informed perspective. This paper represents an initial step in developing an “informed perspective.” As the first note to this paper indicates, an important ancillary objective is to illustrate the potential of Statistics Canada databases to provide tabulations to answer specific Questions posed by researchers and policy analysts.     

The impact of rent seeking activity on U.S. preferential trade and World debt

Zusammenfassung Der Einflu\ von “rent seeking“-Aktivit?ten auf den Pr?ferenzhandel der USA und die Verschuldung in der Welt. - Der Verfasser untersucht die Wirkung der US-Handelspr?ferenzen für Entwicklungsl?nder auf die amerikanischen Einfuhren aus den gr?\ten Schuldnerl?ndern in den Jahren {dy1985} und 1986. Die empirischen Befunde für Argentinien, Brasilien, Indonesien, Korea, Mexiko, die Philippinen und Venezuela zeigen unbedeutende und/ oder kontraproduktive Wirkungen des revidierten Allgemeinen Pr?ferenzsystems auf die US-Importe aus diesen hochverschuldeten Entwicklungsl?ndern.

---

Resumen El impacto de la actividad de “rent seeking” sobre el comercio preferencial de los EE.UU. y la deuda externa. - El autor analiza el impacto de las preferencias comerciales ofrecidas por los EE.UU. a los países en desarrollo, el Sistema Generalizado de Preferencias (GSP), sobre las importaciones estadounidenses de manufacturas de países altamente endeudados en {dy1985} y 1986. La evidencia empirica para Argentina, Brasil, Indonesia, Corea del Sur, México, Filipinas y Venezuela indica que los efectos del GSP revisado sobre las importaciones estadounidenses de esos países han sido insignificantes y/o contraproductivos.

---

Résumé L’impact de l’activité de ?rent seeking? au commerce préférentiel des Etats-Unis et l’endettement des pays du monde. - L’auteur analyse les effets des préférences commerciales des Etats-Unis qui sont disponibles aux PVD - le système de préférences généralisées (SPG) - aux importations manufacturées américaines qui proviennent des nations avec l’endettement la plus grande en {dy1985} et 1986. L’évidence pour l’Argentine, le Brésil, l’Indonésie, la Corée, le Mexique, les Philippines et le Venezuela indiquent des effets négligeables et/ou improductifs du SPG révisé en ce qui concerne les importations américaines de ces pays.

     

Race and the discouraged female worker: A question of labor force attachment

This article presents an empirical examination of female attachment to the labor market. An econometric model of the discouragement process is built to determine how strongly women exhibit the inclination to remain labor force participants over the course of the business cycle. The estimated results imply that women, as a group, have a stronger response to changes in short-run cyclical fluctuations and therefore will sever their attachment to the labor force significantly sooner than their male counterparts. However, when the analysis is broken down by race, minority females are discovered to demonstrate only a modest response to short-run fluctuations and a very pronounced long-run sensitivity to cyclical swings. Thus, the results suggest that while females as a whole do not exhibit the same degree of labor force attachment as males, minority females respond in a manner similar to that of male workers. Such a conclusion is in agreement with the growing literature on the labor market behavior of minority females who are increasingly playing the same economic role in society as men.     

Finance and credit in the strategy for the economic development and structured investment policy of the Russian Federation

The article discusses the role and place of finance and credit in the structured investment policy and substantiates possible directions of measures in the sphere of money and finance aimed at accelerating economic growth in Russia.     

A NOTE ON DISTRIBUTED LAG MODELS OF MAIZE AND WHEAT PRODUCTION RESPONSE: THE KENYAN CASE*

In this note the supply responses in maize and wheat production are estimated from distributed lag models. The Nerlove model and the Fisher distributed lag model fit Kenyan data but more complicated models, like the polynomial lag model, do not. The calculated price elasticities suggest that Kenyan large-scale farmers are highly responsive to price changes. Some policy implications are drawn from the analysis.