The first generation of genetically modified (GM) crop varieties sought to increase farmer profitability through cost reductions or higher yields. The next generation of GM food research is focusing also on breeding for attributes of interest to consumers, beginning with ‘golden rice’, which has been genetically engineered to contain a higher level of vitamin A and thereby boost the health of u...

Many fear China’s accession to WTO will impoverish its rural people, via greater import competition in its agricultural markets. We explore that possibility bearing in mind that, even if producer prices of some (land-intensive) farm products fall, prices of other (labor-intensive) farm products could rise. Also, the removal of restrictions on exports of textiles and clothing could boost town an...

The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) at the WTO deals with the progressive opening of the markets in high-income countries, favoring the dynamic exporters among the developing countries. This process is to be finished by the year 2005, when the whole sector is going to be under the WTO rules, and will occur in four steps, but only at the end will the majority of products be included. In...

The spread of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) among domestic poultry and wild birds has caused global concern over the outbreak of an influenza pandemic of H5N1. The “Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Action Plan” determines the strategy against an influenza pandemic in Japan. Simulations were carried out using an individual based model (IBM). The IBM targeted a virtual area with a p...

The main objective of this study was to evaluate what would be the economic and environmental consequences of losing the GMO traits in the U.S. for the major crops of corn, soybeans, and cotton. The first step was to obtain from the literature a range of estimates of the yield loses if we move away from GMO traits in the U.S. The second step was to introduce the yield losses obtained in the fir...

Processing of meat and crops accounts for a large share of manufacturing in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The paper assesses empirically the impact of hypothesized productivity change in agro-food processing on growth, trade, employment, and input and output prices in SSA, using a 13 commodity, 7 region version of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) applied general equilibrium model with a 199...

World food trade patterns have changed in the last 40 years with the share of world trade comprised of bulk commodities falling, and the share of world food trade comprised of processed commodities rising. These changes have been driven by a combination of supply and demand forces. On the demand side, world demand for livestock products and more highly processed food products has been rising mo...

Commercial Links between Western Europe and East Asia: Retrospect and Prospect by Kym Anderson and Joseph F. Francois East Asia has rapidly become the third centre of gravity for global economic activity. North America is relatively well integrated with East Asia, but Europe is not. This paper explores the extent to which economic growth and trade policy developments over the next decade or so ...

This paper produces a new dataset to further the literature on the behavior of multinational firms. The Eurostat database, with a large number of sector-level, bilateral observations on foreign affiliate sales, provides a basis from which to extrapolate the relationships between various host and source country factors and the foreign affiliate activity produced by them. This paper exploits the ...