2017/02/01 by Cornelius Hirsch, Harald Oberhofer, Hirsch, Cornelius +1
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Agricultural Economics and Policy #Global Trade and Competitiveness #Global trade and economics
paper · doi:10.57938/8022dee7-51a0-4e1c-b081-67ffac65ef7d
openalex publication_date 2017/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Agricultural support levels are at a crossroad with reduced distortions in OECD countries and increasing support for agricultural producers in emerging economies over the last decades. This paper studies the determinants of distortions in the agricultural markets by putting a specific focus on the role of trade policy. Applying various different dynamic panel data estimators and explicitly accounting for potential endogeneity of trade policy agreements, we find that an increase in the number of bilateral free trade agreements exhibits significant short- and long-run distortion reducing effects. By contrast, WTO's Uruguay Agreement on Agriculture has not been able to systematically contribute to a reduction in agriculture trade distortions. From a policy point of view our findings thus point to a lack of effectiveness of multilateral trade negotiations.