China's WTO commitments in agriculture and impacts of potential OECD agricultural trade liberalizations

TY - JOUR

T1 - China's WTO commitments in agriculture and impacts of potential OECD agricultural trade liberalizations

AU - Yu, Wusheng

AU - Frandsen, Søren E.

PY - 2005

Y1 - 2005

N2 - After accession to the WTO, China’s agriculture is affected by the implementation of its WTO commitments and will be impacted by any multilateral liberalization (actions by the rich OECD economies in particular) resulting from the Doha negotiations. Using the actual commitment data, our computable general equilibrium simulation results show that China’s WTO commitments will lead to increased agricultural imports and slightly declined outputs in China. The resulting efficiency gains will be negated by terms-of-trade losses, leading to quantitatively small welfare impacts. Furthermore, sectoral results depend critically on correctly representing the more complex policy measures, such as the tariff rate quotas. The negative output effects on Chinese agriculture can be alleviated/reversed if the rich OECD countries commit to reform their agriculture policies. The present paper concludes that trade liberalization should be carried out in both developing and developed countries. Reforming the latter will be particularly helpful in easing the problems facing those developing countries that are carrying out ambitious trade reforms.

AB - After accession to the WTO, China’s agriculture is affected by the implementation of its WTO commitments and will be impacted by any multilateral liberalization (actions by the rich OECD economies in particular) resulting from the Doha negotiations. Using the actual commitment data, our computable general equilibrium simulation results show that China’s WTO commitments will lead to increased agricultural imports and slightly declined outputs in China. The resulting efficiency gains will be negated by terms-of-trade losses, leading to quantitatively small welfare impacts. Furthermore, sectoral results depend critically on correctly representing the more complex policy measures, such as the tariff rate quotas. The negative output effects on Chinese agriculture can be alleviated/reversed if the rich OECD countries commit to reform their agriculture policies. The present paper concludes that trade liberalization should be carried out in both developing and developed countries. Reforming the latter will be particularly helpful in easing the problems facing those developing countries that are carrying out ambitious trade reforms.

U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-8381.2005.00202.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1467-8381.2005.00202.x

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1351-3958

VL - 19

SP - 1

EP - 28

JO - Asian Economic Journal

JF - Asian Economic Journal

IS - 1

ER -