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This study determines how production and trade policy distortions affected rice productivity in thirty-three rice-producing countries. A rice-productivity index for each country is constructed, and a model linking the productivity gap with policy distortions is presented. After controlling for the differences in infrastructure, openness, and human capital, this article shows that high subsidies and protection in developed countries combined with taxation of rice farming in poor countries have widened the gap in rice productivity between rich and poor rice countries. Key words: agricultural policy distortions, trade policies, productivity, rice 2The agricultural sector in many developing countries has suffered from both a set of policy distortions and low productivity, but in all the attempts to find workable solutions the interaction between these two problems has been overlooked. For many commodities including rice, while developed countries have heavily subsidized their production and exports and limited their imports, developing countries have taxed their producers severely in favor of their consumers. Recently, many developing countries have reinforced the taxations of grain production in an attempt to halt the increases in consumer prices. Studies have concluded that these distortions have depressed prices, hurting specifically farmers in small open economies. That the depressed farm prices and revenues are likely to affect farmers' ability to adopt new technology has, however, been forgotten. Indeed, low farm prices and revenues reduce poor farmers' ability to afford investments associated with the adoption of new technology; even if technology is available, productivity will remain low as long as poor farmers do not expect much profit from adopting it. At a time when developing countries still lag far behind in productivity levels, struggle with food insecurity, and suffer from inefficient resource allocation and lack of competitiveness, exploring the link between agricultural policy distortions and productivity is long overdue. 1 The objective of this article is to determine how policy distortions affected productivity in the rice sector for thirty three prominent rice-producing countries during 1 Past studies (e.g. Nin et al. (2003)) often assume that changes in agricultural policies are detached from productivity growth. One of the rare studies on the impacts of government program on productivity in agriculture is Makki, Tweeten, and Thraen (1999), but it was confined only to the US case.3 the period 1961-2002. The specific objectives are to (i) measure the levels and growth rates of total factor productivity (TFP) in rice production for the selected countries, (ii) provide a model linking productivity with production and trade policies, and (iii) estimate the impacts of policy distortion on productivity gaps among these producing countries.The innovation in this article is twofold. First, I use constructed productivity indexes instead of yields. A dynamic panel data model is employed to obt...

A declining trend in the prices of vanilla beans reduce export earnings of developing country exporters. At the same time, currencies for these developing countries have depreciated. The‘new’ trade theories suggest that market structure plays an important role in relating exchange rate devaluations to price declines. This paper investigates the market structure and estimates the impact of exchange rate movements on prices for vanilla beans imported by the USA from five producers of vanilla beans in developing countries. Unlike other studies, the estimation is based on a‘fixed‐effects’ econometric model derived from the importer's profit equation and the‘Pricing to Market’ (PTM) hypothesis. Data are a pooled cross‐section and time series covering the period “1967”. The results reveal some evidence that US importers of vanilla beans have the market power to apply price discrimination and to adjust import prices in reaction to exchange rate movement vis‐à‐vis exporters.

This analysis of food imports used an enhanced gravity model of trade, with food imports from approximately 136 countries from 2004 to 2014. Using improved panel data techniques, we show that total income, inflation in the food exporting country, corruption perception in the food exporting country, trade openness in the food exporting economy, GCC membership are important determinants of food imports by Qatar. In addition, we show that Qatari food imports mostly originate in countries with, on average, similar economic sizes. Finally, Qatar’s factor endowment is dissimilar to those of most of its trading partners, a situation that potentially fosters international food trade in accordance with the Heckscher–Ohlin theory of trade.

Using panel data for six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries from 1995-2014, we assess the impacts of several major economic variables on intra-GCC food exports, and on GCC food exports to the world. The GCC customs union had minimal impact on intra-GCC food exports, but occasioned a significant reduction in GCC food exports. Unlike GCC food exports, intra-GCC food exports occurred among countries with similar relative factor endowments, in agreement with the Linder Hypothesis. Rising incomes and exchange rates played significant roles in both intra-GCC food exports and GCC food exports, while distance has lost its once-dominant role.