Alternative Subsidy Reduction Paths: Commodity, Fiscal, and Monetary Policy Linkages

In the case of the U.S. agricultural policy, this paper shows how governmental intervention can be formally incorporated in a conditional-vector-error-correcting model. From the resulting theoretical framework and empirical analysis, formal hypotheses are tested regarding both forward and backward linkages among money, exchange rates, and agricultural and nonagricultural markets. Consistent with the current Uruguay Round of the GATT negotiations, a number of policy simulations are conducted with the constructed empirical model. Phased reductions in the degree of subsidization in the U.S. agricultural sector are shown, through these policy simulations, to alter the feedback effects from money to prices as well as the dynamic path for exchange rates.