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Agricultural distortions in Sub-Saharan Africa : trade and welfare indicators, 1961 to 2004

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  • Croser, Johanna
  • Anderson, Kym

Abstract

For decades, agricultural price and trade policies in Sub-Saharan Africa have hampered farmers’ contributions to economic growth and poverty reduction. Although there has been much policy reform over the past two decades, the injections of agricultural development funding, together with ongoing regional and global trade negotiations, have brought distortionary policies under the spotlight once again. A key question asked of those policies is: How much are they still reducing national economic welfare and trade? Economy-wide models are able to address that question, but they are not available for many poor countries. Even where they are, typically they apply to just one particular previous year and so are unable to provide trends in effects over time. This paper provides a partial-equilibrium alternative to economy-wide modeling, by drawing on a modification of so-called trade restrictiveness indexes to provide theoretically precise indicators of the trade and welfare effects of agricultural policy distortions to producer and consumer prices over the past half-century. The authors generate time series of country level indexes, as well as Africa-wide aggregates. They also provide annual commodity market indexes for the region, and a sense of the relative importance of the key policy instruments used.

Suggested Citation

  • Croser, Johanna & Anderson, Kym, 2010. "Agricultural distortions in Sub-Saharan Africa : trade and welfare indicators, 1961 to 2004," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5344, The World Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5344
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shaohua Chen & Martin Ravallion, 2010. "The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1577-1625.
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    Cited by:

    1. Abate, Gashaw T. & Badiane, Ousmane, 2018. "Determinants of African agricultural exports," IFPRI book chapters, in: Africa agriculture trade monitor 2018, chapter 5, pages 85-109, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. repec:ajn:agdeve:2017:p:1-12 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Mwangi, Esther N., 2021. "Determinants of Agricultural Imports in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Gravity Model," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 9(2), April.
    4. Anderson, Kym & Bruckner, Markus, 2012. "Distortions to Agriculture and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124908, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. World Bank, 2011. "Missing Food : The Case of Postharvest Grain Losses in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Bank Publications - Reports 2824, The World Bank Group.
    6. Anderson, Kym & Brückner, Markus, 2011. "Price Distortions and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa," CEPR Discussion Papers 8530, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic Theory&Research; Markets and Market Access; Emerging Markets; Trade Policy; Free Trade;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • N57 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - Africa; Oceania
    • Q17 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agriculture in International Trade
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy

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