Whether the UK should hold a referendum on continued membership of the European Union (EU) is one of the issues in its general election to be held in May 2015. A possible British withdrawal, or Brexit, would have profound implications for Ireland and particularly for its agri-food sector, given...

Concern over budgetary costs has been the traditional driving force behind changes to the EU's Common Agricultural Policy. While the recent MacSharry reform of this policy was more related to external pressures arising from the need to reach an agreement on agriculture in the GATT Uruguay Round,...

This paper examines the implications of the GATT Uruguay Round agreement in December 1993 for the Irish Economy, focusing in particular on output and employment effects. The main channels by which the GATT agreement will make its influence felt are first identified. Broad estimates of the output...

This paper calculates average technical efficiency levels and rates of technical change for Irish agriculture using an unbalanced panel of 2,603 farms drawn from the Irish National Farm Survey over the period 1984 to 1998. An average technical efficiency level of between 65 and 70 per cent with...

This paper discusses tariff rate quotas (TRQs) as a way of enhancing market access for developing country agricultural exports. Using the EU as a case study, it examines the extent to which developing countries have been able to make use of existing TRQs to gain access to the EU market. Many...

Tariff rate quotas (TRQs) were introduced and legitimised as a market access instrument in the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA). TRQs combine both restrictions on imports, as well as safeguarding current or preferential agricultural trade flows. When market access is restricted by a...

This paper analyses the economics of tariff rate quotas assuming a large importing country and several different suppliers with differing levels of competitiveness. Eleven theoretical situations are distinguished according to the way the quota is allocated to exporters, the level of constraint...

Environmental objectives have become increasingly integrated into the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) since the mid-1980s. Integration has been pursued through the attachment of environmental conditions to the receipt of direct payments in Pillar 1 (cross compliance) and the use of...