Suchergebnisse

Some two decades will shortly have passed since the WTO's Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement came into force in 1995. This volume is the first cross-country analysis of how TRIPS has affected the capacity of 11 major low or medium income countries to produce generic drugs

In this paper I argue that factors such as conflicting pressures for food regulation reform and continuing industry assistance programs have made conditions even more favourable for collective business interest representation in Australia's food processing sector. The push by firms for less onerous and more business-friendly regulation has run up against environmental and social pressures/or more rigorous regulatory controls, as awareness grows ofthe risks ofnew technologies. The case of the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) illustrates the issues. The extent to which this association participates directly in the design and implementation of public policy is indicative of a decline in the autonomy of politicians and the state bureaucracy vis-a-vis the ideology and interests of business.

In this paper, the impact of alternative development strategies on growth and poverty is assessed in an economywide framework, using Egypt as a case study. The analysis is guided by the following question: By pursuing a development strategy different from the one actually pursued since the late 1970s, could Egypt's government significantly have improved the status of its poor? To address this question, a dynamic, recursive, Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model is used to simulate Egypt's economy for the period 1979-1997. The model is built around a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for 1979. The results indicate that pro-poor redistribution of land and human capital assets could have been a particularly effective tool had Egypt prioritized more strongly to improve the welfare of the poor and reduce inequalities. Such policies could have been implemented without any noticeable negative impact on growth or aggregate welfare. The results also suggest that, for Egypt, there was no contradiction between more rapid growth, largely a function of more rapid productivity growth, and improved welfare for the poor. The present analysis confirms the finding of earlier analyses that, compared to pro-manufacturing policies, pro-agricultural policies have a more positive impact on household welfare in general and the poor in particular. There is a significant synergy between a pro-agricultural shift in productivity growth, improved market access for agricultural exports, and reduced transactions costs in foreign trade. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1 ; TMD

Morocco is currently about to start reducing industrial protection in the context of its association agreement with the European Union. However, agriculture, which represents the major income source for the disfavored rural population, is the sector that is most strongly protected. In this study, a general equilibrium model of Morocco is used as a laboratory for analyzing the short-run equilibrium effects of alternative scenarios for reduced protection for agriculture and industry. The model, which is calibrated to a Social Accounting Matrix for 1994, is distinguished by an explicit separation of activities, factors, and households into rural and urban. It has a detailed treatment of agricultural and other rural production, the labor market, and households (disaggregated into four types: rural poor, rural non-poor, urban poor, urban non-poor). The simulation results indicate that reduced agricultural protection would generate significant aggregate welfare gains at the same time a significant part of the disadvantaged rural population would lose strongly. The impact of industrial tariff cuts is small. The outcome is less unfavorable for rural households over a slightly longer time frame where labor migration between agriculture, the rest of the rural economy and urban areas is feasible. The results for simulations that introduce compensatory measures targeting the rural population suggest that the dilemma presented by the tradeoff between aggregate and rural welfare can be overcome: in simulations introducing trade liberalization together with government transfers to owners of rainfed agricultural resources, or moderate improvements in rural skill levels or productivity in rural non-agriculture, the gains from trade liberalization are shared relatively evenly among all household groups. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1 ; TMD

Using a mathematical-programming agricultural-sector model of Egypt, this paper analyzes mechanisms for allocating scarce water and for charging the farmers the Operation and Management (O&M) costs of irrigation and drainage, currently covered by the government. The effects of cost recovery are negative but minor. A crop charge (based on crop water consumption per land unit) and a volumetric charge both discourage consumption. The former is easier to implement but does not stimulate water-saving technical change. A 15% cut in agricultural water supplies (permitting a 79% increase in non-agricultural use) raise farmer incomes and has moderate negative effects on consumer welfare and production; a 30% cut causes disproportionately larger negative effects, including large increases in the agricultural trade deficit. Efficient market-based allocations yield higher production and avoid unequal water access, associated with the inefficient alternative of forcing half the farmers to cut their use. However, water sales to farmers at prices reducing demand by 15-30% lead to 20-35% declines in farmer incomes. This suggests the need to explore reforms endowing the farmers with tradable water rights. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1 ; TMD

Using a mathematical-programming agricultural-sector model of Egypt, this paper analyzes mechanisms for allocating scarce water and for charging the farmers the Operation and Management (O&M) costs of irrigation and drainage, currently covered by the government. The effects of cost recovery are negative but minor. A crop charge (based on crop water consumption per land unit) and a volumetric charge both discourage consumption. The former is easier to implement but does not stimulate water-saving technical change. A 15% cut in agricultural water supplies (permitting a 79% increase in non-agricultural use) raise farmer incomes and has moderate negative effects on consumer welfare and production; a 30% cut causes disproportionately larger negative effects, including large increases in the agricultural trade deficit. Efficient market-based allocations yield higher production and avoid unequal water access, associated with the inefficient alternative of forcing half the farmers to cut their use. However, water sales to farmers at prices reducing demand by 15-30% lead to 20-35% declines in farmer incomes. This suggests the need to explore reforms endowing the farmers with tradable water rights. ; IFPRI4 ; TMD ; Non-PR

Using a Computable General Equilibrium model for Egypt based on data for 1991/92, this paper analyzes the short-run impact of removing price-distorting subsidies for oil products sold domestically and for commodities covered by the consumer subsidy program. The model merges neoclassical and structuralist features. Two sets of simulations are conducted. The first involves raising the price of domestic oil products to international levels; the second simulates the impact of removing consumer subsidies. Each policy gives rise to an increase in government savings. The analysis is focused on imposing alternative macro closures in order to explore trade-offs between alternative uses for these savings: foreign debt repayment (adding to Egypt's net foreign assets), domestic investment, and government transfers to the households. The results indicate that both policies are contractionary, across all macro closures. The strongest fall in real GDP and other indicators resulted from paying back foreign debt. For the other two cases, the savings were used in a manner which simulated the domestic economy, with a trade-off between investing and improving current household conditions. On the micro level, the oil policy simulations showed a decline in domestic oil use by 6-8 percent (with an accompanying reduction in air pollution) and larger exports. For the consumer subsidy cut, the household consumption fall was relatively limited for food due to low income and price elasticities; most of the consumption cut affected other industrial goods and services. Sensitivity analysis suggested that one structuralist feature--mark-up pricing and excess capacity in much of the economy--had a strong impact on the results; when profit maximization and no excess capacity was assumed for most sectors, the changes in real GDP and other variables were much smaller. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1 ; TMD

"The fifth volume in the series, Research in Middle East Economics focuses on crucial questions concerning the economics of food and agriculture in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Bringing together specialists from a number of disciplines, including agricultural economics, agronomy, economics, geography, and political science, the volume explores a range of issues of relevance to development policy makers and scholars alike. In addition to including general chapters providing discussions of the links between agriculture, food production and distribution, trade, resource use, and and government policies, the volume also contains chapters focusing on these issues for particular countries, within MENA." -- Preface, p. xii. ; IFPRI5; MP-12 ; TMD; DSGD ; Non-PR ; xxv, 337 p.

The Republic of Korea is characterized by rapid growth of its elderly population, a stagnant working-age population, the world's lowest total fertility rate, and the largest gender wage gap among the OECD countries. The heavy domestic and care work performed by women who receive little or no help from male household members constrains their labor force participation. The government strives to reduce the growing care burden of households, particularly among women, and raise female labor force participation rates as well as fertility rates. We examine the impact of various policy options to attain these objectives using a gendered computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for Korea. It is the first model in the literature using time use data with a focus on care services provided by the market and households. The simulations focus on the impact of policies that expand public care, provide subsidies to care provided by households or the private sector and reduce female wage discrimination. The results indicate that these policies improve the welfare of households with care responsibilities by freeing up time for women to take on jobs that pay better. Their broader economic impact, however, depends on the flexibility of gender roles in the division of labor both in households and in the broader economy.

In recent decades, Zimbabwe's development record has been disappointing. In the last few years, a severe drought and the Covid-19 pandemic have added to the country's development challenges. This paper is concerned with the long-run need to find a path toward faster growth in GDP, employment, and incomes, accompanied by more rapid progress on poverty reduction and other parts of the global sustainable development agenda. As part of this search, the country will need to address structural constraints including a large infrastructure gap, an inefficient government, and unhospitable business climate. Among these, this paper is focused on infrastructure and alternative means of financing scaled-up investments – what are the consequences of relying on domestic taxes compared to foreign financing? To address these questions, the paper draws on simulations with SDGSIM, a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, designed for SDG analysis but applicable to analysis of policies in a wide range of areas, including growth, fiscal space, and external shocks. The model was adapted to the Zimbabwean context and calibrated to a database for 2016. The simulations cover the period 2016-2030 and analyzes the effects of alternative levels and priorities for government spending and resource mobilization (domestic and foreign). The simulation results cover a wide range of economic indicators, including some related to the global Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda. The differences between the scenario results for GDP growth, household consumption, and poverty point to the importance of strong public investment management and, other things being equal, of targeting TFP gains to tradable sectors. The advantages of reliance on domestic taxation for the funding of expanded investment include slower debt accumulation and less reliance on the decisions of external actors. Tax reliance may also give the funders, the citizens, a stronger sense of ownership and right to monitor how the money is used, with a positive impact on investment productivity. On the other hand, before the investment have yielded sufficient returns, reliance on taxes reduces private purchasing power, leading to some combination of lower private consumption and investment. Raising the tax burden by 2-3 percent of GDP may also be administratively difficult. It would of course be possible to consider scenarios that split the funding burden between domestic taxes and foreign financing. ; Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales