IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jageco/v51y2000i3p371-387.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Agricultural Comparative Advantage and Government Policy Interventions

Author

Listed:
  • E. Wesley F. Peterson
  • Siva Rama Krishna Valluru

Abstract

International trade patterns are often explained by comparative advantage which is frequently thought to depend on variations in national factor endowments. Government intervention in agricultural markets may also have an impact on trade patterns. This study explores the relation between factor endowments and agricultural trade patterns and examines the impact of agricultural and environmental policies on trade flows. Measures of national endowments of capital, labour, land and energy reserves are computed for a sample of 40 countries and used to estimate Heckscher‐Ohlin‐Vanek equations with net trade in several agricultural commodities as the dependant variable. Variables measuring agricultural policy and environmental regulations are added to the equations and tested for significance. The variables representing government intervention do not contribute to the explanation of trade patterns while national factor endowments do account for much of the variation in trade patterns of grains, oilseeds, cotton, and, to a lesser extent, meat products and an aggregate of all agricultural goods. Commodities such as sugar, tropical products and fruits and vegetables do not appear to be well explained by factor endowments.

Suggested Citation

  • E. Wesley F. Peterson & Siva Rama Krishna Valluru, 2000. "Agricultural Comparative Advantage and Government Policy Interventions," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 371-387, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:jageco:v:51:y:2000:i:3:p:371-387
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-9552.2000.tb01237.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-9552.2000.tb01237.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1477-9552.2000.tb01237.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ronald Findlay, 1995. "Factor Proportions, Trade, and Growth," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061759, December.
    2. Harrigan, James, 1997. "Technology, Factor Supplies, and International Specialization: Estimating the Neoclassical Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 475-494, September.
    3. Abler, David G & Shortle, James S, 1992. "Environmental and Farm Commodity Policy Linkages in the U.S. and the EC," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 19(2), pages 197-217.
    4. Adam B. Jaffe et al., 1995. "Environmental Regulation and the Competitiveness of U.S. Manufacturing: What Does the Evidence Tell Us?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 132-163, March.
    5. William F. Hyde, 1992. "Sedjo, R. A., and K. S. Lyon. The Long-Term Adequacy of World Timber Supply. Washington DC: Resources for the Future, 1990, xv + 230 pp., $30.00," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 74(1), pages 242-243.
    6. Sullivan, John, 1990. "Price Transmission Elasticities in the Trade Liberalization (TLIB) Database," Staff Reports 278327, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sanderson, Todd & Ahmadi-Esfahani, Fredoun Z., 2010. "Climate change and Australia’s comparative advantage in broadacre agriculture," 2010 Conference, August 26-27, 2010, Nelson, New Zealand 96493, New Zealand Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    2. Colin A. Carter & Shon M. Ferguson, 2019. "Deregulation and regional specialization: Evidence from Canadian agriculture," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1497-1522, November.
    3. Narayan, Seema & Bhattacharya, Poulomi, 2019. "Relative export competitiveness of agricultural commodities and its determinants: Some evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 29-47.
    4. Blank, Steven C., 2002. "Is American Agriculture Near The End Of Its "Life Cycle"?," 2002 Annual Meeting, July 28-31, 2002, Long Beach, California 36580, Western Agricultural Economics Association.
    5. Fertő, Imre & Hubbard, Lionel J., 2001. "Versenyképesség és komparatív előnyök a magyar mezőgazdaságban [Competitiveness and comparative advantage in Hungarian agriculture]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(1), pages 31-43.
    6. Sarker, Rakhal, 2018. "Trade Expansion, International Competitiveness and the Pursuit of Export Diversification in Bangladesh," Bangladesh Development Studies, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), vol. 41(02), pages 1-25, June.
    7. Sarker, Rakhal & Ratnesena, Shashini, 2014. "Revealed Comparative Advantage and Half-A-Century Competitiveness of Canadian Agriculture: A Case Study of Wheat, Beef and Pork Sectors," Working Papers 165675, Canadian Agricultural Trade Policy Research Network.
    8. Imre Ferto & Lionel J. Hubbard, 2002. "Revealed Comparative Advantage and Competitiveness in Hungarian Agri-Food Sectors Technology Foresight in Hungary," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0208, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    9. Imre Ferto & Lionel J. Hubbard, 2001. "Competitiveness and comparative advantage in Hungarian agriculture," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0102, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2004. "Trade, Growth, and the Environment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(1), pages 7-71, March.
    2. Emilio Galdeano‐Gómez, 2010. "Exporting and Environmental Performance: A Firm‐level Productivity Analysis," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(1), pages 60-88, January.
    3. Xinpeng Xu, 2000. "International Trade and Environmental Regulation: Time Series Evidence and Cross Section Test," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 17(3), pages 233-257, November.
    4. Alessandro Moro, 2021. "Can capital controls promote green investments in developing countries?," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1348, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    5. Vlatka Bilas & Mile Bosnjak, 2015. "Revealed Comparative Advantage And Merchandise Exports: The Case Of Merchandise Trade Between Croatia And The Rest Of The European Union Member Countries," Economic Thought and Practice, Department of Economics and Business, University of Dubrovnik, vol. 24(1), pages 29-47, june.
    6. Yang, Qiuyue & Song, Deyong, 2019. "How does environmental regulation break the resource curse: Theoretical and empirical study on China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    7. Pavel Ciaian & d'Artis Kancs & Jan Pokrivcak, 2008. "Comparative Advantages, Transaction Costs and Factor Content of Agricultural Trade: Empirical Evidence from the CEE," EERI Research Paper Series EERI_RP_2008_03, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.
    8. Bommer, Rolf, 1995. "Environmental policy and industrial competitiveness: The pollution haven hypothesis reconsidered," Discussion Papers, Series II 262, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    9. Na Li Dawson & Kathleen Segerson, 2008. "Voluntary Agreements with Industries: Participation Incentives with Industry-Wide Targets," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 84(1), pages 97-114.
    10. McLaughlin, Patrick & Potts, Jason, 2019. "RegData: Australia," Working Papers 10062, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    11. Greenaway, David & Torstensson, Johan, 2000. "Economic Geography, Comparative Advantage and Trade within Industries: Evidence from the OECD," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 15, pages 260-280.
    12. Francesco Vona & Francesco Nicolli & Lionel Nesta, 2012. "Determinants of renewable energy innovation: environmental policies vs. market regulation," Sciences Po publications 2012-05, Sciences Po.
    13. Lei Ding & Xuejuan Fang, 2022. "Spatial–temporal distribution of air-pollution-intensive industries and its social-economic driving mechanism in Zhejiang Province, China: a framework of spatial econometric analysis," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 1681-1712, February.
    14. Stavins, Robert, 2001. "Lessons From the American Experiment With Market-Based Environmental Policies," RFF Working Paper Series dp-01-53, Resources for the Future.
    15. Arik Levinson & M. Scott Taylor, 2008. "Unmasking The Pollution Haven Effect," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(1), pages 223-254, February.
    16. Satyajit Majumdar & Gordhan K. Saini, 2016. "CSR in India: Critical Review and Exploring Entrepreneurial Opportunities," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 2(1), pages 56-79, January.
    17. David Saal & David Parker & Tom Weyman-Jones, 2007. "Determining the contribution of technical change, efficiency change and scale change to productivity growth in the privatized English and Welsh water and sewerage industry: 1985–2000," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 127-139, October.
    18. Tiberio Daddi & Maria Rosa De Giacomo & Francesco Testa & Marco Frey & Fabio Iraldo, 2014. "The Effects of Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Regulation on Company Management and Competitiveness," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(8), pages 520-533, December.
    19. Wolfgang Keller, 2002. "Geographic Localization of International Technology Diffusion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 120-142, March.
    20. William Maloney & Andrés Rodríguez‐Clare, 2007. "Innovation Shortfalls," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(4), pages 665-684, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jageco:v:51:y:2000:i:3:p:371-387. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0021-857X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.