Terroir, the concept of an essential link between location of production and a specific quality attribute, is emerging as a contentious issue in trade negotiations and disputes. This issue is manifest through disputes and disagreements about appropriate protection of ‘geographical indications’ (GIs). This paper explores the differences in approach taken by the EU and the US towards GI protection, and illustrates the nature of the legal and economic arguments. The transatlantic dispute is spreading to other countries through the inclusion of GI protection in regional and bilateral trade pacts. It also has implications for the eventual conclusion of the WTO Doha Round negotiations, as the terroir issue arises in both the agricultural and the Trade‐Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agendas, once again pitting the US and EU as protagonists. But there are signs of change in these positions as the GI system in the EU comes under review and producers in the US reconsider the possible advantages of location‐based identifiers. These issues are important in a number of food sectors, and are likely to be persistent. They deserve more attention from practising applied economists than they have yet received.
The source publication explains the pros and cons of GIs, how they work, and the success factors that influence them. We have distilled the lessons from the published literature, including nearly 200 research papers, and the evidence from eight original case studies conducted in Antigua Guatemala, Nariño Colombia, Darjeeling India, Blue Mountain Jamaica, Kona Hawaii, Mezcal regions of Mexico, Veracruz Mexico, and Mongolia.The book offers a global overview of GIs today and their distribution worldwide by country and by product. It covers not only the economic or competitive value of GIs but also their considerable developmental characteristics. These include: effect on small producers, employment, and rural enterprise, culture and environment. However, it goes beyond the opportunities to suggest areas of cautions and to clearly illustrate how GIs can be problematic and are certainly not appropriate in certain cases.Best practices and lessons learned are documented in a concise and accessible manner so that anyone interested in GIs can better understand how to structure them, step-by-step, and how to consider the options available to develop them. The book covers the philosophical and political distinctions of different legal protection options and reviews the 2 differences between EU approaches and those followed in the US and in other major countries such as China and India. This includes insights on the application processes and a set of "Frequently Asked Questions" on GIs in general. The focus is predominantly on the challenges faced by developing countries.
The study of international trade in agricultural products has developed rapidly over the past fifty years. In the 1960s the disarray in world agriculture caused by domestic price support policies became the focus of analytical studies. There followed attempts to measure the distortions caused by policies also in developing countries and to model their impact on world agricultural markets. Tools were advanced to explain the trends and variations in world prices and the implications of market imperfections. Challenges for the future include analyzing trade based on consumer preferences for certain production methods and understanding the impact of climate change mitigation and adaptation on trade.
The article attempts to survey the recent contributions by economists to the analysis of agricultural policies in developed countries, and to take stock of the state of our knowledge of the extent to which these policies have been successful. It is restricted to readily available contributions in the English language and concentrates on the evaluation of price and factor market policies. A broad consensus has emerged, based on a neoclassical analysis of the performance of a competitive industry, as to the nature of the problems of the agricultural industry. This consensus is preserved in the interpretation of the implications of government intervention, and the difficulties that emerge when policies are designed which attempt to alter long run resource returns. Economists have employed a variety of approaches to policy analysis, depending in part on the weight that they give to institutional factors. The economic tools which have been used in policy analysis have demonstrated the need to specify the aims of policy or the underlying social criteria, and generalisations as to the relative efficiency of alternative instruments are not easy to find. An examination of the interaction among general economic and specifically agricultural policies identifies a number of areas where there is insufficient evidence and points to a change in the emphasis which a period of inflation has brought about.
Résumé
POLITIQUES AGRICOLES DANS LES PAYS DÉVELOPPÉS: UN TABLEAU
Cet article entend dormer un aperçu d'ensemble des travaux récents des économistes portant sur l'analyse des politiques agricoles dans les pays développés et faire le point de l'état des connaissances actuelles sur la mesure du succès de ces politiques. Il se limite aux études aisément disponibles en lanque anglaise et se concentre sur l'évaluation des politiques afférentes aux prix et au marché des facteurs. Un consensus général est apparu, qui repose sur une analyse néoclassique des résultats d'une industrie compétitive, quant à la nature des problèmes de l'industrie agricole. Ce consensus reste invariable dans l'interprétation des conséquences de l'intervention gouvernementale et des difficultés qui apparaissent lorsque des politiques sont définies qui cherchent à modifier le rendement des ressources à long terme. Pour l'analyse des politiques, les économistes employent des méthodes variées, dépendant en partie du poids qu'ils attachent aux facteurs institutionnels. Les outils économiques utilisés dans l'analyse des politiques ont démontré le besoin de spécifier les objectifs de politique ou les critères sociaux sousjacents, et les généralisations quant à l'efficacité relative des instruments alternatifs ne sont pas faciles à trouver. Un examen de l'action réciproque entre des politiques économiques générales et spécifiquement agricoles permet de cerner plusieurs domaines où les preuves sont insuffisantes et met en lumière une variation dans l'accent principal suscitée par une période inflationniste.
Zusammenfassung
DIE AGRARPOLITIK IN ENTWICKELTEN LÄNDERN: EINE...
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