TY - BOOK ID - 137698700 TI - Novel indicators of the trade and welfare effects of agricultural distortions in OECD countries AU - Croser, Johanna AU - Anderson, Kym PY - 2010 PB - Washington, D.C., The World Bank, DB - UniCat KW - Agricultural Price KW - Agriculture KW - Consumers KW - Crops & Crop Management Systems KW - Development Economics KW - Economic Models KW - Economic Theory & Research KW - Emerging Markets KW - Equilibrium KW - Exchange Rates KW - Free Trade KW - Import barriers KW - Index numbers KW - International Economics and Trade KW - International trade KW - Less developed countries KW - Macroeconomics and Economic Growth KW - Markets and Market Access KW - Open economy KW - Price elasticity KW - Price elasticity of supply KW - Private Sector Development KW - Taxation KW - Trade policies KW - Trade policy KW - Transition economies KW - WTO UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:137698700 AB - Agricultural markets in OECD countries have long been highly distorted by government policies. Traditional weighted average aggregates of the price distortions involved, such as producer and consumer support estimates can be poor indicators of the trade restrictiveness and economic welfare losses associated with them, especially if a country's support estimates vary a lot across the product range. Certainly estimates of trade and welfare effects of price supports can be obtained from sector or economy-wide models using price elasticity estimates, but the results can be contentious if there is no consensus on what model specification and elasticity parameters to use. This paper shows that, if there is a willingness to accept simple assumptions about elasticities, it is possible to generate indicators of the welfare and trade restrictiveness of agricultural policies using no more than the price and quantity data needed to generate producer and consumer support estimates. These new indexes thus provide an attractive supplement to the current policy monitoring regime developed by the OECD Secretariat. ER -