This paper is concerned with the timing of an agricultural policy reform under uncertainty. The focus is on the opportunity cost of giving up the option to wait when implementing a policy reform. Including the option value in applied policy analysis can help explain why conventional analyses may...

The vast majority of domestic support to farmers in the European Union (EU) is notified in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) green box as decoupled payments. The EU considers this support to minimally distort production and/or trade. As demonstrated in the literature, this claim is...

The introduction of agricultural reforms has debatable effects on food security in developing countries. This research investigates how such effects influenced maize supply in two developing countries which were among the first to introduce agricultural reforms. Conclusions from the research...

Developing country producers face several constraints related to food safety standards imposed by developed countries. The purpose of this study is to identify factors affecting export flows with respect to food safety standards; and to measure the effects of food safety standards on exports....

A simple but new theoretical approach is used to analyse ex-ante the impact of tariff reduction. This methodology is based on the assumption of a constant price relation between each direct substitutable product. No elasticities are needed, but accurate import and domestic prices of the most...

The CAP Health Check in 2008 may result in fundamental changes in EU dairy policy. An expansion of the EU dairy quota is being strongly considered as a prelude to the elimination of the quota mechanism by 2014/15. This paper addresses the implications of such a reform for EU and Irish dairy...

The European Commission proposes a minimum of 10 % biofuels in the total transport fuel use by 2020. The new 10% minimum target in 2020 is combined with the existing regulation, which fixes the target at 5.75% in 2010. This paper will in particular investigates how a full implementation of the...

The Common Agricultural Policy is modelled as a club good providing the European Union (EU) farmer with financial benefits. We build an economic model which explains how much farmers in individual EU countries invest in rent-seeking activities in order to test for free-riding behaviour on...

Paper removed by author for revision 12/09/08.

The price-wedge method yields a tariff-equivalent estimate of technical barriers to trade (TBT). An extension of this method accounts for imperfect substitution between domestic and imported goods and incorporates recent findings on trade costs. We explore the sensitivity of this revamped tariff...