IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpco/0410004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Assessing the Economic Impacts of Incorporating Romania's Agricultural and Food Sectors into EU's Customs Union: an Applied General Equilibrium Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Serban S. Scrieciu

    (Institute for Development Policy & Management, School of Environment & Development, University of Manchester)

Abstract

Joining the European Union club implies, among many other policy changes, full integration of Romania's economy into EU's customs union. This is expected to have significant implications for domestic farmers and food processors. The paper constructs a single-country Applied General Equilibrium (AGE) model to investigate the impact of tariff border adjustments on changes in relative prices, production and trade patterns associated with fifteen local agro-food activities. Moreover, the modelling work identifies those agro-food sectors that have the potential to benefit the most from EU enlargement in terms of output effects given that Romanian producers are capable of fully responding to the incentives provided with integration. These mainly include (bovine) live animals and meat products, sugar, and cereal grains. Agro-food trade with EU intensifies in particular for those commodities for which trade restrictions are still substantial prior to accession. However, the magnitude of changes is relatively small due to the weak integration of domestic agro-food sectors into international trade structures. The AGE model also predicts static welfare gains of 0.65 percent of GDP equivalent variation. These seem to be more associated with better access to EU markets and increased export prices, and less with the preferential unilateral elimination of tariffs or their adjustment to EU's external levels. The model assumptions are highly theoretical and the model structure does not reflect with fidelity the workings of an economy in transition. Nonetheless, it does represent a solid base upon which further improvements could be added and structural transitional issues could be attached to more accurately predict potential outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Serban S. Scrieciu, 2004. "Assessing the Economic Impacts of Incorporating Romania's Agricultural and Food Sectors into EU's Customs Union: an Applied General Equilibrium Approach," Computational Economics 0410004, EconWPA.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpco:0410004
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 38. The paper was first published in 2004 as IDPM Development Economics and Public Policy Working Paper No.5, Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM), University of Manchester.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/comp/papers/0410/0410004.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McDaniel, Christine A. & Balistreri, Edward J., 2002. "A Discussion on Armington Trade Substitution Elasticities," Working Papers 15856, United States International Trade Commission, Office of Economics.
    2. Frank H. Fuller & John C. Beghin & Samarendu Mohanty & Jacinto F. Fabiosa & Cheng Fang & Phillip Kaus, 1999. "Impact of the Berlin Accord and European Enlargement on Dairy Markets, The," Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) Publications 99-wp231, Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at Iowa State University.
    3. Schiff, Maurice & Winters, L Alan, 1998. "Regional Integration as Diplomacy," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 12(2), pages 271-295, May.
    4. Arjan Lejour & Ruud de Mooij & Richard Nahuis, 2001. "EU enlargement: economic implications for countries and industries," CPB Document 11, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    5. Shoven, John B & Whalley, John, 1984. "Applied General-Equilibrium Models of Taxation and International Trade: An Introduction and Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 22(3), pages 1007-1051, September.
    6. Herok, Claudia A. & Lotze, Hermann, 2000. "Implications of an EU Eastern Enlargement Under a New Common Agricultural Policy," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 661-690, November.
    7. Hertel, Thomas W., 2002. "Applied general equilibrium analysis of agricultural and resource policies," Handbook of Agricultural Economics,in: B. L. Gardner & G. C. Rausser (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 26, pages 1373-1419 Elsevier.
    8. Maurice Schiff & L. Alan Winters, 2003. "Regional Integration and Development," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 15172, August.
    9. Erno Zalai, 1998. "Computable Equilibrium Modelling and Application to Economies in Transition," CERT Discussion Papers 9804, Centre for Economic Reform and Transformation, Heriot Watt University.
    10. Wonnacott, Paul & Wonnacott, Ronald, 1981. "Is Unilateral Tariff Reduction Preferable to a Customs Union? The Curious Case of the Missing Foreign Tariffs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 704-714, September.
    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. Scrieciu, Silviu Serban & Blake, Adam, 2003. "General Equilibrium Modelling Applied to Romania (GEMAR): Focusing on the Agricultural and Food Sectors," Development Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 30544, University of Manchester, Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    EU enlargement; Customs union; Agriculture; Romania; AGE modelling;

    JEL classification:

    • D58 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Computable and Other Applied General Equilibrium Models
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products

    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:wpa:wuwpco:0410004. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (EconWPA) or (). General contact details of provider: http://econwpa.repec.org .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.