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Using recent estimates of industry assistance rates, the effects of trade liberalization in the rest of the world and in Pakistan alone are analyzed using a global and a Pakistan computable general equilibrium (CGE) model under two tax replacement schemes: a direct income tax and an indirect tax replacement. The results indicate that the distributional and poverty effects in Pakistan of a unilateral liberalization of all traded goods are significantly greater than the effects of trade liberalization in the rest of the world. There is relatively higher increase in real income and larger decline in poverty incidence in poor households both in rural and urban areas. The effects of agricultural trade liberalization alone in both the rest of the world and in Pakistan are considerably smaller than those from trade liberalization involving all goods. In both the agricultural and all-goods trade liberalization scenarios involving direct income tax replacement, real household income is raised and the poverty incidence is lowered at varied rates across all household groups except for the urban non-poor. When an indirect tax replacement is used, where the burden of replacing tariff revenue is shared by all household groups depending on their consumption structure, there is reduction in household income for most of the groups and less reduction of poverty.

Accounting --- Agricultural Sector --- Agricultural Sector Economics --- Agricultural Trade --- Agricultural Workers --- Agriculture --- Commodity Prices --- Consumers --- Developing Countries --- Household Consumption --- Household Savings --- Income Inequality --- Income Redistribution --- Income Tax --- Industrialization --- Inequality --- Inflation --- Irrigation --- Labor Market --- Marketing --- Political Economy --- Poverty and Trade --- Poverty Reduction --- Remittances --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Savings --- Skilled Workers --- Tax Policy --- Trade Liberalization --- Trade Policy --- Wages

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This paper analyzes the impact of large-scale expansion of biofuels on the global income distribution and poverty. A global computable general equilibrium model is used to simulate the effects of the expansion of biofuels on resource allocation, commodity prices, factor prices and household income. A second model based on world-wide household surveys uses these results to calculate the impacts on poverty and global income inequality. The study finds that the large-scale expansion of biofuels leads to an increase in production and prices of agricultural commodities. The increased prices would cause higher food prices, especially in developing countries. Moreover, wages of unskilled rural labor would also increase, which slows down the rural to urban migration in many developing countries. The study also shows that the effects on poverty vary across regions; it increases in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, whereas it decreases in Latin America. At the global level, the expansion of biofuels increases poverty slightly.

Biofuels --- Economic Theory & Research --- Energy --- Environment --- Food & Beverage Industry --- General equilibrium modeling --- Income inequality --- Labor Policies --- Poverty --- Regional Economic Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction

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This paper analyzes the poverty and inequality implications of removing agricultural and non-agricultural price distortions in the domestic market of the Philippines and abroad. Liberalization in the rest of the world is poverty and inequality reducing, whereas full domestic liberalization increases national poverty and inequality. Poverty declines while inequality increases marginally in the combined scenario of both global and domestic agriculture reform. Although the reduction in the national poverty headcount is small in the latter scenario, the poorest of the poor, particularly those living in the rural areas, emerge as 'winners', given their strong reliance on agricultural production and unskilled labor wages.

Agricultural Sector Economics --- Agricultural Trade --- Agriculture --- Animal Feed --- Beef --- Commodity Prices --- Consumers --- Corn --- Developing Countries --- Economic Policy --- Food Consumption --- Food Processing --- Gdp --- Grains --- Gross Domestic Product --- Income Tax --- Inequality --- Information Technology --- International Food Policy Research Institute --- Labor Market --- Meat --- Milling Industry --- Political Economy --- Poverty and Trade --- Poverty Reduction --- Savings --- Skilled Workers --- Sugar --- Trade Liberalization --- Trade Policy --- Trade Protection --- Unemployment --- Unskilled Workers --- Wages --- World Trade Organization

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"Since the early 1980s the Philippines has undertaken substantial trade reform. The current Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations is now likely to bring further reform and shocks to world import prices and export demand. The impact of all these developments on the poor is not very clear and is the subject of intense debate. The authors use a detailed economywide computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to run a series of policy experiments. They find that poverty increases slightly with the implementation of the prospective Doha scenario. These effects are focused primarily among rural households in the wake of falling world prices and demand for the Philippines' agricultural exports. The authors find that the impacts of full liberalization-involving free world trade and complete domestic liberalization-depend strongly on the mechanism the government adopts to offset forgone tariff revenue. If an indirect tax is used, the incidence of poverty falls marginally, but the depth (poverty gap) and severity (squared poverty gap) increase substantially. If, instead, an income tax is used, all measures of poverty increase. In both cases, full liberalization favors urban households, as exports, which are primarily nonagricultural, expand. In separate simulations, the authors discover that free world trade is poverty reducing and favors rural households, whereas domestic liberalization is poverty increasing and favors urban households. Under free world trade, rural households benefit from increasing world agricultural demand. The anti-rural bias of domestic liberalization stems from the fact that import prices fall more for agricultural goods than for industrial goods, as initial import-weighted average tariff rates are higher for the former. In conclusion, the current Doha agreement appears likely to slightly increase poverty, especially in rural areas and among the unemployed, self-employed, and rural low-educated. The Philippines is found to have an interest in pushing for more ambitious world trade liberalization, as free world trade holds out promise for reducing poverty. "--World Bank web site.

Equilibrium (Economics) --- Free trade --- Poor --- Philippines --- Commercial policy.