National barriers to trade are often varied to insulate domestic markets from international price variability. This paper explores the extent of that behavior by governments using estimates of agricultural price distortions in 75 countries. Newly estimated price transmission elasticities are...

The recent upward spike in the international price of food led some countries to raise export barriers. As in previous price spike periods, that response by some food-exporting countries was accompanied by a lowering of import restrictions by numerous food-importing countries. Both actions...

Agricultural markets in OECD countries have long been highly distorted by government policies. Traditional weighted average aggregates of the price distortions involved, such as producer and consumer support estimates (PSEs and CSEs), can be poor indicators of the trade restrictiveness and...

Earnings from farming in many low-income countries have been depressed by a pro-urban bias in own-country policies, as well as by governments of richer countries favoring their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduce national and global economic welfare. The...

Despite recent reforms, world agricultural markets remain highly distorted by government policies. Traditional indicators of those price distortions can be poor guides to the policies’ economic effects. Recent theoretical literature provides indicators of trade- and welfare-reducing effects of...

Australia’s lacklustre economic growth performance in the first four decades following World War II was in part due to an anti-trade, anti-primary sector bias in government assistance policies. This paper provides new annual estimates of the extent of those biases since 1946 and their gradual...