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List of Tables -- List of Figures -- Series Editor's Preface -- Notes on the Contributors -- Current Issues in Agricultural Economics: Introduction and Overview; A.J.Rayner & D.Colman -- The Political Economy of Industrial Countries' Agricultural Policies; L.A.Winters -- Agricultural Policy Reform in the US and the EC; T.Josling -- Agricultural Trade and the Gatt; A.J.Rayner, K.A.Ingersent & R.C.Hine -- Transformation of Agriculture in Central Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union: Major Policy Issues and Perspectives; C.Cz ki -- The Quest for Sustained Growth in Chinese Agriculture; T.Sicular -- Macroeconomics and the Agricultural Sector; P.Midmore & D.A.Peel -- Economics of Agricultural Research and Biotechnology; W.Lesser & D.Lee -- Environmental Economics and Agricultural Policy; D.Colman -- Less Favoured Areas and Rural Decline; K.J.Thompson -- Notes and References -- Bibliography -- Author Index -- Subject Index.

A topical, up-to-date and highly authoritative survey of the highly controversial debate around reform of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy. The book begins with a critical assessment of the 1992 MacSharry reform and the 1994 GATT Uruguay Round. It looks to the likely impact of future reforms on the agricultural economy, on consumers and on the environment, in the light of future EU developments including enlargement and budget constraints and the forthcoming world Trade Organization negotiations of 1999. The postscript highlights the main issues likely to inform the CAP debate into the next millennium.

Agriculture was a major item on the agenda of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), launched in 1986. In this specially commissioned volume the national positions on agriculture taken up by the major players during the course of these negotiations are set out and analysed, country by country, by a team of internationally renowned experts. The editors have selected and ordered the studies to provide a coherent assessment and synthesis of the main issues and areas of controversy raised by the negotiations. Examination of the reasons for the holding of different national perspectives on the issue of agricultural policy and trade reform helps to explain why reaching international agreement in this area of the GATT negotiations has been so elusive.

This paper examines the relationship between per capita income and a wide range of environmental indicators using cross-country panel sets. The manner in which this has been done overcomes several of the weaknesses asscociated with the estimation of environmental Kuznets curves (EKCs). outlined by Stern et al. (1996). Results suggest that meaningful EKCs exist only for local air pollutants whilst indicators with a more global, or indirect, impact either increase monotonically with income or else have predicted turning points at high per capita income levels with large standard errors – unless they have been subjected to a multilateral policy initiative. Two other findings are also made: that concentration of local pollutants in urban areas peak at a lower per capita income level than total emissions per capita; and that transport-generated local air pollutants peak at a higher per capita income level than total emissions per capita. Given these findings, suggestions are made regarding the necessary future direction of environmental policy.