Title: Agricultural trade and the Doha round : lessons from commodity studies
Abstract: While global analytical approaches to agricultural trade liberalization yield large gains for most economies, there are substantial variations in the policy regimes across commodities. To clarify the multiplicity of distortions and impacts, the World Bank's Trade department undertook a series of commodity studies. The studies provide a sharper look at the North-South dimensions of the agricultural trade debate. They also underline the South-South challenge on border protection, and reduced rural income opportunities for the lowest-income countries due to policies in higher-income countries depressing world prices. Agricultural trade liberalization would induce significant price increase for most commodities. The studies identify the detrimental effects of multilateral trade liberalization for some countries.