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The purpose of this paper is to develop a modelling approach that enables the analysis of long-term food security policies. Specifically, the authors explore the effect of China’s agricultural domestic support on its agricultural and food market by also considering the impact of incomplete price transmission.

The authors extend the standard Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) modelling framework. First, the authors incorporate incomplete price transmission into the GTAP model by generating tariff-equivalent price transmission elasticities. Second, the authors improve the current representation of China’s agricultural domestic support in the GTAP model and the underlying database by considering the production requirements and the trade-distorting effect of different policy instruments. Running a set of simulations, the authors examine first how the incorporation of incomplete price transmission affects the model’s results and second how increased agricultural domestic support affects China’s agricultural and food market accounting for incomplete price transmission.

Considering incomplete price transmission mitigates the domestic price increases as responses to high international agricultural prices, which also lead to an increase in China’s trade deficit and prohibits net food sellers from receiving high prices. In the long term, an increase in China’s agricultural domestic support to its World Trade Organisation de minimis commitment level would increase domestic agricultural production and reduce its demand pressure on the international market.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining the impact of increased agricultural domestic support on the domestic market while innovatively accounting for incomplete food price transmission. The authors combine econometric estimated price transmission elasticities and an extended GTAP framework to underscore the importance of enhancing the model’s ability in accounting for incomplete price transmission when analysing the impact of agricultural policies.

Domestic supports on Turkish agriculture have substantially increased over the past decade while empirical evaluation of their output impact is limited. Also, the existing literature often neglects potential spatial spillover effects of agricultural policies or subsidies. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the direct and spillover effects of Turkish agricultural domestic measures and agricultural credits use on the added agricultural value.

This study applied a spatial panel model incorporating spatial interactions among the dependent and explanatory variables to evaluate the impact of government support and credit on Turkish agricultural output. A provincial data set of agricultural output values, input factors and government subsidies from 2004 to 2014 was used to model the spatial spillover effects of government supports.

Results show that a one percent increase in agricultural credits in a given province leads to an average increase of 0.17 percent overall in agricultural value-added per hectare, including 0.05 percent from the direct effect and 0.12 percent from the spillover effect. Contrary to agricultural credits, a one percent increase in government supports in a province generates a mixed direct and spillover effects, resulting in an overall reduction of 0.13 percent in agricultural value-added per hectare in Turkey.

This study could be extended by controlling for climate, biodiversity and investment factors to agricultural output in addition to input and policy factors if such data were available.

This study fills the gap in the literature by determining the total effect, including direct and spatial spillover effect, of domestic supports and credits on Turkish agricultural value. The findings provide crucial information to decision makers regarding the importance of incorporating spatial spillover effects in the design of agricultural policy.

The purpose of this paper is to quantify the implications of China's recently adopted agricultural policies on domestic and international commodity markets.

A systematic, quantitative analysis is applied to address whether China's recent trade and production policies distort China's domestic and international commodity markets. The paper provides a clear picture of how trade‐restricting policies affect markets using a 42‐country partial equilibrium global dynamic agricultural simulation model.

The paper shows that recent agricultural policy reforms increase China's production slightly, causing imports to decrease while exports decline because of input subsidies, export taxes and the reduction of export value added tax rebates. Domestic prices to consumers decrease in real terms. The effects on world markets are small as the set of policies adopted partially offset each other in the international arena.

The paper indicates that the adoption of the policy reforms lower price levels domestically and benefit lower income urban and rural households, whose diets are largely based on rice and wheat as staple foods. Future model enhancements should include measures of producer and consumer welfare in order to capture the total impacts of policies and policy changes in China.

The paper quantifies the potential implications of the recent agricultural policy reforms in China. This contributes to the investigation of the effects of these policies implemented by the Chinese Government to achieve the country's policy objectives. Owing to the dynamics of China's policy implementation an in‐depth analysis sheds light and contributes to capturing the impacts of policy reforms on the domestic and international markets.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of the trading relationship in agricultural goods that the United Kingdom (UK) will have when it leaves the European Union (EU). The decision of the UK to leave the EU has raised many questions, including some on the nature of the trading relationship that the UK will have with the EU and third countries once it leaves the EU.

For agriculture, the UK will need to develop its own agricultural policy as it will no longer be subject to the Common Agricultural Policy and one constraint on the development of that policy will be the Agreement on Agriculture concluded at the end of the Uruguay Round negotiations.

This paper examines the three pillars of that Agreement – market access, domestic support and export competition – to determine the commitments that the UK may make in each pillar and then looks at two other relevant agreements, the SPS Agreement and the TBT Agreement, to complete the discussion of the scope of the UK nascent agricultural policy.

The value of the paper lies in the discussion of the obligations to be assumed by the UK under the Agreement on Agriculture and the contours of UK agricultural policy once it leaves the EU.

This paper aims to examine the applicable legal framework, various concerns regarding the price support methodology and the merits and pitfalls of the Bali peace clause that currently shields India’s public stockholding (PSH) policy, to provide suggestions on moving forward in the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations.

At the WTO, PSH for food security is considered a trade-distorting price support measure when food stocks are purchased from farmers at administered prices instead of market prices. The price support is measured by a specific methodology stipulated under the Agreement on Agriculture. India is concerned that the price support methodology overestimates the actual support provided to the farmers and makes India susceptible to violating the WTO law.

The paper explains the domestic implications for India arising due to the applicable WTO law. Given the centrality of India’s PSH programmes in ensuring food security, India must seek more clarity on the interpretation of Article 18.4 of the AoA and the ambiguous provisions of the Bali peace clause.

The paper provides a timely and updated analysis of the contentious issue of PSH for food security, exclusively from the Indian perspective, highlighting the persisting challenges for India in WTO agriculture negotiations. This is timely as many WTO members have raised serious concerns about India’s market price support policies recently and this analysis informs the reader about the underlying issues.

The debate to find a solution for domestic price support under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) has been a long one. The stance of India is critical to determine due to its large population. This paper aims to analyse the benefits or demerits of minimum price support and what approach could be adopted by India.

The paper is a mix of both analytical and theoretical research. The paper first provides a background on the issues related to public stockholding and further analyses some data at which India procures wheat and rice from the farmers and then compares it with retail market prices in India.

The paper finds that the difference in price between minimum price support and retail market prices in India for wheat and rice is minimal. Therefore, the concern that India might be taking advantage of the minimum price is uncalled for. India also needs to balance its own interests as well as abide by its WTO obligations. The paper finds that cooperation among countries or regional blocks might help to address the problem of food insecurity.

The paper portrays India’s stance with regard to WTO AOA as well as studies the Indian market for wheat and rice.

There is no single undertaking regulating food assistance at the international level. International food assistance is regulated by a patchwork of rules emanating from different institutions and normative arrangements. This study aims to explore how international law shapes international food assistance. How is international law regulating food assistance, considering this patchwork of institutions and norms? What dominant narratives enshrined in legal agreements shape the evolution of international food assistance?

The author uses the concept of “regime complex”, which allows analyzing partially overlapping and nonhierarchical regimes governing a particular issue, shedding light on the narratives and institutional arrangements that lead to the consolidation of international rules. The author identifies two main regimes that govern international food assistance: the food assistance regime and the food trade regime.

The author shows that using the “regime complex” concept clarifies the evolution of international food assistance, highlighting that international law is a crucial element in shaping international food assistance and showing that the two main institutional regimes governing it interact and shape rules along three main themes: the centrality of donor States’ self-interests, the relationship between international food assistance and trade liberalization and the goal of achieving food security for the beneficiaries.

Using the regime complex concept, the author brings new light on the broader institutional and legal framework influencing the governance of international food assistance, showing that different regimes take part in its shaping.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the grain production implications of alternative designs for China’s grain subsidy policy. In particular, the authors examine three subsidy designs including area-based subsidy, quantity-based subsidy and production-cost-based subsidy.

To carry out the analysis, the authors develop a Chinese agricultural sector model (CASM) and an econometric, policy action–farmer response summary model. The CASM is used under a wide variety of subsidy level and basis experiments to generate pseudo data on farmer reactions to subsidies. Then a summary function model was estimated over those pseudo data that quantitatively summarized modeled farmer responses to different grain subsidy schemes. In turn, the summary functions were used to optimize the subsidy level such that it maximized grain production both within and across the area-based, quantity-based and cost-based subsidies. Regional implications were also developed.

The authors found that the production-quantity-based subsidy is the most cost-effective in stimulating grain production among the subsidy schemes. The authors also argue that scheme complies with WTO regulations regarding product-specific support. The authors found that the areas where grain production was most affected were the traditional grain-producing regions.

To the authors’ knowledge the authors have not seen a study of the Chinese grain subsidy program context that examined the effects of alternative subsidy schemes, nor one that developed estimates of the optimal subsidy level. In addition, the methodology is unique employing bottom-up, regionally disaggregated, sector modeling coupled with an aggregate pseudo data based summary function approach providing a new, original approach for analyzing agricultural policy design.

This paper aims to determine whether domestic cotton support permitted by the current or potential World Trade Organization (WTO) rules would be sufficient to compensate the cost to China's cotton farmers if the sliding scale duty (SSD) on cotton imports is removed.

The simulation was conducted using a static spatial equilibrium model (SEM) of the world cotton market. First, a base model was specified to provide a good representation of the world cotton market's conditions. Second, simulations were conducted to evaluate the effects of replacing the SSD and subsidizing cotton producers pursuant to the current or potential WTO rules on domestic cotton support.

The results of the simulations suggest that China's cotton farmers are bound to incur losses. In either case, cotton subsidies permitted by the current or potential WTO rules are not sufficient to compensate for the cost to China's cotton producers if the SSD is eliminated.

It should be pointed out that these findings could suffer from a bias, primarily because the authors assumed that the WTO's blue box subsidies have no incentives for farmers to produce, and no substitution between cotton and alternative products. Thus, additional work is needed to reflect a more realistic situation in future studies.

The simulation estimation contributes to a better understanding of the issue of whether China should replace the current SSD with cotton subsidies to protect cotton producers.