Agricultural Import Surges in Developing Countries: Exogenous Factors in their Emergence

As a pragmatic definition applied throughout this paper, an import surge is considered a situation in which the quantity or value of imports suddenly exceeds a "normal" level. This somewhat loose concept leaves questions as to how "suddenly", "normal" and "excess" should be defined precisely, and whether a conceptual distinction needs to be made between symmetric surges (a fall after an increase in imports or vice versa), and asymmetric surges (an increase in imports which remains at a similar level thereafter). It also leaves open the question of whether imports are the right reference, or if instead net imports should be the relevant criterion....