Liberalizing Agriculture by OECD Countries: Welfare, Growth and Distributional Impact in Developing Countries

Abstract

Although it is often argued that liberalization provides opportunities for growth and development in all over the world, there are divergent views about the effects of agricultural trade liberalization on growth and income distribution in developing countries. The developing countries’ main complaint in this regard is that trade distorting activities in agriculture by developed countries adversely affecting their exports and consequently growth, and income and employment of the people therein. There is a general perception among the policymakers and academia that the developing countries would gain much from the removal of existing distortion in the agricultural market because of the tremendous importance of the agricultural sector in their economies. The current paper has analyzed the effect of trade liberalization in agriculture on welfare, growth and income distribution in developing countries, using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and indicates that the effect is not similar for all the developing countries.