Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Abbreviations and Acronyms
- PART ONE Introduction
- PART TWO CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS AND HISTORICAL ORIGINS
- Part Three Political Econometrics: the Past Fifty Years
- NINE Agricultural Price Distortions and Stabilization
- TEN Why Governments Tax or Subsidize Agricultural Trade
- ELEVEN Impacts of Ideology, Inequality, Lobbying, and Public Finance
- TWELVE Agricultural Trade Interventions in Africa
- THIRTEEN Trade Agreements and Trade Barrier Volatility
- FOURTEEN Constitutional Rules and Agricultural Policy Outcomes
- Appendix: Coverage and Distribution of Assistance across Countries and Products, 1955–2007
- Index
- References
TWELVE - Agricultural Trade Interventions in Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Abbreviations and Acronyms
- PART ONE Introduction
- PART TWO CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS AND HISTORICAL ORIGINS
- Part Three Political Econometrics: the Past Fifty Years
- NINE Agricultural Price Distortions and Stabilization
- TEN Why Governments Tax or Subsidize Agricultural Trade
- ELEVEN Impacts of Ideology, Inequality, Lobbying, and Public Finance
- TWELVE Agricultural Trade Interventions in Africa
- THIRTEEN Trade Agreements and Trade Barrier Volatility
- FOURTEEN Constitutional Rules and Agricultural Policy Outcomes
- Appendix: Coverage and Distribution of Assistance across Countries and Products, 1955–2007
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter explores the political economy of agricultural trade protection in sub-Saharan Africa. It makes use of a new World Bank dataset of indicators of distortions to domestic prices of agricultural (and nonagricultural) commodities caused by government policies – trade taxes, nontariff trade barriers, subsidies, or currency distortions. When greater than zero, the indicators suggest that government policies favor farming; when the relative rate of assistance is below zero, it suggests policies have an antiagricultural bias.
As indicated in Chapter 2, governments in Africa, like those elsewhere, have adopted less distorting/more neutral policies since the 1980s. Increasingly their policies impact farming and other industries in a less biased manner. However, policies in Africa continue to alter prices in ways that discriminate against farming, and more so than in other developing country regions.
In this chapter, we describe the levels of protection in our sample of twenty sub-Saharan African countries and the manner in which they vary; and, drawing from the literature on the political economy of agriculture, we advance and test a series of explanations for the patterns we observe.
Pertinent features of Africa
Agricultural policies in Africa vary substantially across the continent. In their recent study of Africa's economic performance in its first fifty years of independence, Ndulu et al. (2007) stress the importance of differentiating between countries whose economies are resource-rich, landlocked, or coastal.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Political Economy of Agricultural Price Distortions , pp. 304 - 331Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
References
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, , , and (2008), “Measuring Distortions to Agricultural Incentives, Revisited,”World Trade Review 7(4): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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(2007a), “Domestic Interests and Control Regimes,” pp. 175–201 in B. Ndulu, P. Collier, R. Bates and S. O'Connell (eds.), The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa, 1960–2000, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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, , , , and (2001), “New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions,”World Bank Economic Review 15: 165–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (2008), Database of Political Institutions, accessible at http://go.worldbank.org/2EAGGLRZ40Google Scholar
and (1998), “Initial Conditions and Moment Restrictions in Dynamic Panel Data Models,”Journal of Econometrics 87: 115–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (1968), “Development Patterns: Among Countries and Over Time,”Review of Economics and Statistics 50(4): 391–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2002), “Political Institutions and Economic Growth in Africa: 1970–1995,” in and (eds.), Coping with Globalization: Cross-National Patterns in Domestic Governance and Policy, Boulder CO: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
, and (eds.) (1991), The Political Economy of Agricultural Pricing Policy, Volume 1: Latin America, Volume 2: Asia, and Volume 3: Africa and the Mediterranean, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press for the World Bank.
(1991), “Historical Patterns of Agricultural Policy,” pp. 29–83 in (ed.), Agriculture and the State, Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
, , and (eds.) (2007), The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa, 1960–2000, 2 volumes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef
and (2007), “Policy Plus: African Growth Performance 1960–2000,” pp. 3–75 in , , and (eds.), The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa, 1960–2000, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2006), The G-Econ Database on Gridded Output: Methods and Data, Yale University, New Haven. Available at http://gecon.yale.edu/gecon_data_%20051206.pdfGoogle Scholar
(1995), Democracy, Development and the Countryside, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1995), “Lobbying Incentives and the Pattern of Protection in Rich and Poor Countries,”Economic Development and Cultural Change 43(2): 401–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and Others (1986), The Political Economy of Agricultural Production: East Asia in International Perspective, London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
, , , and (2008), “Measuring Distortions to Agricultural Incentives, Revisited,”World Trade Review 7(4): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (2008), Estimates of Distortions to Agricultural Incentives, 1955 to 2007, core database at http://www.worldbank.org/agdistortionsGoogle Scholar
(1994), Beyond Capitalism vs Socialism in Kenya and Tanzania, Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner.
(2007a), “Domestic Interests and Control Regimes,” pp. 175–201 in B. Ndulu, P. Collier, R. Bates and S. O'Connell (eds.), The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa, 1960–2000, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(2007b), “Political Reform,” pp. 348–90 in , , and (eds.), The Political Economy of African Economic Growth, 1960–2000, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(1981), Markets and States in Tropical Africa, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
and (1980), “Agriculture in Development: A Coalitional Analysis,”Public Choice 35(5): 513–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , and (2001), “New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions,”World Bank Economic Review 15: 165–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (2008), Database of Political Institutions, accessible at http://go.worldbank.org/2EAGGLRZ40Google Scholar
and (1998), “Initial Conditions and Moment Restrictions in Dynamic Panel Data Models,”Journal of Econometrics 87: 115–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (1968), “Development Patterns: Among Countries and Over Time,”Review of Economics and Statistics 50(4): 391–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2002), “Political Institutions and Economic Growth in Africa: 1970–1995,” in and (eds.), Coping with Globalization: Cross-National Patterns in Domestic Governance and Policy, Boulder CO: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
, and (eds.) (1991), The Political Economy of Agricultural Pricing Policy, Volume 1: Latin America, Volume 2: Asia, and Volume 3: Africa and the Mediterranean, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press for the World Bank.
(1991), “Historical Patterns of Agricultural Policy,” pp. 29–83 in (ed.), Agriculture and the State, Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
, , and (eds.) (2007), The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa, 1960–2000, 2 volumes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef
and (2007), “Policy Plus: African Growth Performance 1960–2000,” pp. 3–75 in , , and (eds.), The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa, 1960–2000, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2006), The G-Econ Database on Gridded Output: Methods and Data, Yale University, New Haven. Available at http://gecon.yale.edu/gecon_data_%20051206.pdfGoogle Scholar
(1995), Democracy, Development and the Countryside, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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