Review and Synthesis of Empirical Results of Studies of World Trade Organization Agricultural

Developing countries are now the dominant voting bloc in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Many developing countries, especially the least developed, maintain that the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture did little or nothing to benefit them. While many of these countries have presented proposals in the WTO for revisions to the agreement, most of these countries have limited analytical capability for developing and assessing such revisions. To assist developing countries in these efforts the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium undertook an independent impact analysis to provide information on agricultural trade liberalization. This chapter reviews and assesses the results of the six empirical studies appearing later in this volume (chapters 3–8). These six studies examine the impact of several basic scenarios for WTO agricultural reform. The studies did not all address the same questions, and so strict comparisons of all of the results are not possible. This review highlights the results for which there is a strong consensus and those that appear to differ across studies. This chapter examines the impact on commodity prices and production, level of international trade, and welfare gains and losses for both developing and developed Review and Synthesis of Empirical Results of Studies of World Trade Organization Agricultural Trade Reform C H A P T E R T W O