Annual Estimates of Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Europe's Transition Economies

Abstract

This working paper summarizes annual estimates of covered product Nominal Rate of Assistance (NRAs), for each of the focus economies of Europe's transition economies, their key distortion indicators defined in Anderson et al. (2008), and provides some summary statistics for the region's estimates. Four tables are provided for each country: (a) the NRA to individual farm products covered in the study and their weighted average, using as weights production valued at undistorted prices; (b) the RRA to producers of agricultural tradable, again using as weights production valued at undistorted prices, and the component parts of the RRA calculation; (c) the weights themselves for individual covered farm products and for the residual non-covered group of products, shown as percentages and so they sum to 100 percent; and (d) the trade status of each covered product each year. The NRA in the case of a product having just its output price distorted by government policies is the percentage by which the domestic producer price exceeds the price that would prevail under free markets, that is, the border price appropriately adjusted to account for differences in product quality, transport costs, processing costs, etc. A negative value indicates the domestic price is below that comparable border price.