VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "Grant, Jason H."

Browsing by Author "Grant, Jason H."

Now showing 1 - 20 of 36

Agricultural exports and retaliatory trade actions: An empirical assessment of the 2018/2019 trade conflict
Grant, Jason H.; Arita, Shawn; Emlinger, Charlotte; Johansson, Robert C.; Xie, Chaoping (2021-01)
We estimate the ex-post agricultural trade impacts of retaliatory measures imposed by foreign countries in response to United States' Section 232 and 301 tariffs using a theoretically consistent, monthly, product line gravity equation. Retaliation led to significant US agricultural export losses of $13.5 to $18.7 billion on an annualized basis. Considerable heterogeneity exists in the average treatment effect of retaliation. First, retaliatory trade actions presented a strong within-year seasonal impact. Nearly 70% of aggregate trade losses occurred during the US's peak export marketing season. Second, U.S. trade losses were particularly pronounced on homogeneous bulk commodities, whereas product differentiation dampened the impact of retaliation. Third, with few exceptions, the counterfactually estimated direct trade losses line up well with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) trade damage estimates for trade aid programs distributed to farmers impacted by the trade dispute. Finally, we find little evidence that U.S. exports were able to be reoriented to alternative, nonretaliating markets-an indication of high bilateral trade frictions and the destructive consequences of retaliatory trade actions.
Agricultural Trade Performance and Potential: A Retrospective Panel Data Analysis of US Exports of Corn and Soybeans
Grossen, Grace Elizabeth (Virginia Tech, 2019-08-22)
There are a variety of international issues that disrupt the global trade market, an important one being national policies on the regulation of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Many crops have been genetically modified for reasons from herbicide resistance to correcting dietary shortfalls. This study evaluates the United States' exports of corn and soybeans from 1998 to 2016 to identify unusual shocks in trade values. In particular, this study quantifies how the importers' policy stance on the GMO issue impacts bilateral trade values. I estimate a gravity model with both ordinary least squares (OLS) and Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood (PPML) estimations. Residual analysis is used to assess the difference between actual trade and the trade levels predicted by the models. The results suggest that anti-GMO policies reduce trade values by an average of 11%. The largest difference between predictions and actual trade values is seen in corn exports to the European Union. Between 1998 and 2016, this forgone trade in corn was valued at $52.7 billion, which is $2.77 billion per year on average. This value is similar to the annual average value of U.S. exports of corn to Japan in the same period, $2.46 billion. The results have important implications for the agricultural industry. For developing nations, adoption of GMO crops could increase productivity and help alleviate poverty. Ultimately, the decision to adopt is up to the consumer, so the factors of consumer knowledge and opinions of GMOs are not to be ignored.
Assessing the Impacts of a Special Safeguard Mechanism for Agriculture in the Doha Development Agenda
Weeks, Heather Ashley (Virginia Tech, 2011-01-28)
The agricultural negotiations in the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Doha Development Agenda (DDA) are calling for a specific Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) for developing countries that will protect agricultural producers from import surges or price declines, and could potentially add stability to domestic markets. While most of the parameters of this SSM have been decided upon, the DDA negotiations faltered on the issue of whether or not developing nations should be allowed to exceed their pre-Doha bound tariff rates when invoking the SSM. For developing countries, tariffs on agricultural products are an important policy tool to support domestic prices and protect their smallholder producers from global market shifts. Tariffs, however, distort world prices and create global welfare losses. The purpose of this thesis is to assess the impacts of the SSM on global prices and welfare using a non-spatial, synthetic, stochastic, global, partial equilibrium model of the world soybean market. The SSM is assessed in concert with the currently proposed DDA tariff cutting formulas since the additional duties allowed under the SSM are proportional to prevailing bound tariff levels. This study asserts that the SSM actually decreases global price and welfare stability, decreasing world prices of the commodities on which an SSM is placed, though positively affects tariff revenues for those particular commodities. While the SSM may offer a short-term solution for developing countries, its long-term outlook as a price stabilization tool is a not credible argument.
Codex in Motion: Food Safety Standard Setting and Impacts on Developing Countries' Agricultural Exports
Wieck, Christine; Grant, Jason H. (2021-01-12)
The Codex Alimentarius, or 'food code', was established to set international standards to ensure the safety and quality of food and agricultural products while at the same time creating a level playing field for international trade. However, less is known about the duration of the standards setting process in the Codex committees, and the extent to which trade is impacted when standards are delayed versus cases in which the adoption of standards was accelerated. This article reviews and evaluates three case studies in which Codex standards were rapidly adopted: Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) levels in cinnamon; melamine standards for milk and powder; and Codex guidance procedures in the case of melons. Two recent cases in which Codex standards have been held up are also considered: maximum levels of aflatoxins in ready-to-eat peanuts; and cadmium in chocolate. We find evidence that accelerated adoption of Codex standards is an important catalyst facilitating exports by some developing countries. Delays and non-adoption of Codex standards, on the other hand, can lead to significant export underperformance in certain countries and regions. Thus, Codex members would do well to reflect on the positive trade flow benefits that can be realised among developing countries who depend on international standards for export earnings.
COVID-19 & Agricultural Exports under the U.S.-China Trade Deal
Grant, Jason H.; Orden, David R.; Marchant, Mary A. (Virginia Tech. Center for Agricultural Trade, 2020-05)
This report from the Center for Agricultural Trade provides an update on COVID-19 and related impacts on US-China trade.
Cross-Hedging Bison with Live Cattle Futures
Movafaghi, Olivia Shahrzad (Virginia Tech, 2014-08-14)
Bison production is an emerging retail meat industry. As demand increases, it creates opportunity for supply-side growth. However, the bison market is volatile and the potential for a drop in the value of bison makes price risk an important factor for producers. Following price risk theory, hedging opportunities for bison producers are investigated using the live cattle futures contract. For the time periods researched, there is no clear evidence that cross-hedging reduces price risk for bison producers. However, there is a possibility that after the bison industry becomes more established and consumer knowledge plays lesser of a role in prices, cross-hedging strategies will be advantageous to producers.
Economic Significance of Selective Export Promotion on Poverty Reduction and Inter-Industry Growth of Ethiopia
Chala, Zelalem Teklu (Virginia Tech, 2010-06-25)
The purpose of this thesis was to assess the economic implications of an export promotion policy on poverty reduction and inter-industry growth of Ethiopia. The study was conducted in four steps. The first and the second steps involved simulation scenarios. Scenario 1 simulated the change in the incidence of poverty when FDI capital was selectively introduced into non-coffee export agriculture. Scenario 2 simulated a situation in which the coffee industry received the same policy treatment as other export agriculture in accessing FDI capital. Step three analyzed inter-industry growth under the two scenarios. In the fourth step, sensitivity analysis was conducted to assess the possible outcomes of Scenario 1 and 2 under fluctuations in world coffee prices and changes in substitution parameters. A micro-simulated CGE model was constructed to determine optimum production, income and consumption. A Beta frequency distribution function and FGT poverty measures were used to examine the changes in three household groups' income distribution and prevalence of poverty. For these analyses, the National Accounting Matrix and the Household Income and Expenditure Sample Survey data set were used. At the macro level, growth in GDP due to expansion of export agriculture was significant. But at a micro level, the magnitude and dimension of economic changes were different with respect to each policy alternative. In the selective export promotion, for instance, only rural households were able to achieve statistically significant income changes. More particularly, about 10 percent of rural households were drawn out of poverty while only 1.7 and 0.5 percent of small and large urban households overcame poverty. When export promotion was assumed to be implemented across the board of all agricultural activities, the welfare gains were extended beyond rural household groups. In this policy alternative, statistically significant mean income changes were observed for both rural and urban household members. Specifically, about 12 percent of rural, 9 percent of small urban and 5 percent of large urban households were able to escape poverty. These achievements were attributed to higher intensification of coffee production and better linkages with other industries to efficiently allocate factors of production where they provided higher rates of return. The increase in income and consumption of millions of coffee dependent households has also stimulated more agricultural and some non-agricultural productions. Simulation results were observed to deteriorate when export promotion was evaluated under world coffee price fluctuation. The negative effect of a price shock, however, was observed to be minimized under alternative an export promotion approach.
Effects of Quantitative Restrictions on U.S. Textile and Apparel Imports over 1995-2010: An Analysis using Gravity Models
Kim, Eun Hee (Virginia Tech, 2014-09-18)
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects on U.S. textile and apparel imports of the quantitative restrictions imposed under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) (1995-2005), the post-ATC U.S. safeguard quotas on 21 categories of Chinese textile and apparel products (2006-2008), and no quantitative restrictions on U.S. textile and apparel imports (2009-2010). Data were sourced from the Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA) in the U.S. Department of Commerce, the GeoDist dataset from the Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII), and the United Nations Commodity Trade (U.N. Comtrade) database. In this research, three gravity equations were developed and estimated based on the existing gravity model. The first gravity equation was estimated to assess the effects of the independent variables commonly included in gravity models on the total value of U.S. textile and apparel imports from 187 exporting countries with a scaled dependent variable and from 177 without it. The result of the first gravity equation indicated that distance and the per capita GDPs of the exporting countries, exchange rates, and the total GDPs of the exporting countries are statistically significant and have the expected signs in the model with the scaled dependent variable. The second gravity equation was estimated to access the overall effect of the presence or absence of quotas and VERs on U.S. textile and apparel import quantity from the 187 exporting countries. The results from the second gravity model showed that the presence or absence of quotas or VERs is significant and has an unexpected positive sign because the United States tended to impose quotas and VERs on textile and apparel products that it imported in large amounts. The third gravity equation was estimated to assess trade creation and trade diversion effect of the quota and VER levels of U.S. textile and apparel imports with separate equations by product types considering the endogeneity by applying instrumental variables. The result from the third gravity equation showed that the quota and VER level is significant for fabric, apparel, and made-up products with expected signs but the variable is not significant for yarn products. These findings suggest that U.S. textile and apparel imports from the exporting countries limited by quotas and VERs on U.S. textile and apparel imports increased more than rest of world (ROW) imports from those countries as the quota and VER levels on U.S textile and apparel imports increased. Therefore, trade creation occurred between the United States and the exporting countries as the total SME quota or VER levels on those imports increased during the ATC and safeguard period. However, these findings show the demand of yarn as intermediates does not increase much in the United States; therefore, the increase of the total yarn quota or VER level has less of an effect on the yarn imports than other product types.
An Empirical Assessment of the Effects of SPS Regulations on U.S. Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Exports
Ramniceanu, Radu (Virginia Tech, 2011-12-06)
A fundamental requirement in agricultural trade is that imported products are safe, and do not pose a risk to human, animal and plant health. To address this issue, all countries maintain measures to ensure that imported food is safe for consumers, and to prevent the spread of disease among animals and plants. These measures, by their nature, can affect competitiveness by increasing the costs of imports or prohibiting them altogether. To ensure that these measures are used for their intended purpose and not as protectionist measures, WTO member countries signed the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures. A growing number of studies attempt to quantify the effects of SPS regulations on international trade flows. However, precious little research is dedicated to determining the effects of specific phytosanitary regulations on trade flows and, more importantly, questions regarding SPS regulations and their impact as "trade barriers" or "trade catalysts" remain to be settled. This thesis contributes to existing literature in two ways. First, a comprehensive and user friendly database on specific phytosanitary regulations faced by U.S. exports of onions, peas, walnuts, apples, cherries, grapes, peaches/nectarines, oranges and strawberries to 176 countries is developed for the period 1999-2009. Second, this database is used for an empirical investigation to determine how existing SPS regulations affect U.S. fruit and vegetable exports. The results indicate that initially, phytosanitary treatments act as "barriers" to trade. However, as exporters' experience grows, the negative impact of treatments is reduced and eventually eliminated.
Essays on Price and Time in Trade and Household Production
Yang, Jinyang (Virginia Tech, 2022-07-13)
This dissertation consists of three chapters that estimate the elasticities regarding price and time in trade and household production. Chapters 1 and 2 estimate price elasticities. Chapter 1 estimates the one-factor-one-price elasticity of substitution (OOES)—or how the percentage change in the quantity of one good responds to the percentage change in the price (of itself or another good)—in an international trade context. Chapter 2 estimates the two-factor-one-price elasticity of substitution (TOES)—or the difference of percentage changes between two quantities with respect to the percentage change in the price of one good—in the context of household food production. Chapter 3 estimates the elasticity of export quantity and value with respect to delays in the time it takes to load or unload products at US ports. Chapter 1 estimates the price elasticities in agricultural trade. Armington elasticities, the elasticity of substitution between goods from different countries, are key parameters in agricultural trade policy evaluation and welfare calculation. We estimate Armington elasticities for a selected basket of 38 agricultural commodities in 5 categories by compiling a sample of 118 countries' production and trade flows. Following and extending Feenstra et al. (2018), we estimate both the micro-elasticity of substitution between foreign sources of imports and the macro-elasticity of substitution between home and imported products at the commodity level. The median of the micro- and macro-elasticities are 6.4 and 5.0, respectively. Meat products have the lowest micro- and macro-elasticities, with the micro-elasticities ranging from 4.2 (pork) to 5.0 (poultry) and the macro-elasticities ranging from 2.9 (pork) to 4.5 (beef). Crops products have the widest range of Armington elasticities, with micro-elasticities ranging from 2.5 (pigeon peas) to 90.3 (peanuts), and macro-elasticities ranging from 1.2 (pigeon peas) to 20.1 (peanuts). In line with the literature, we find that 75 percent of the agricultural commodities have numerically smaller macro-elasticities than micro-elasticities, even though only 6 of them (pork, poultry, corn, peanuts, apples, and peppers) are statistically smaller at the 5 percent level. We explore the robustness of our estimates by slicing the sample into separate periods and importing countries. Finally, we discuss the policy implications of our estimates on predicting trade due to tariff changes and understanding welfare gains from agricultural trade. Chapter 2 estimates the goods-time elasticity of substitution (EOS), the responsiveness of the difference between money and time in household production for change of opportunity cost of time (OCT). This chapter bridges the gap between literature that directly and indirectly estimates the goods-time EOS in household production. Inspired by the studies in environmental economics, we argue the opportunity cost of time in household production not only depends on wage but life-cycle dynamics and household demographics as well. We proceed with the estimation by two strategies: direct estimation of the household production, and the demand-supply approach borrowed from Feenstra's (1994) research on trade elasticities. Both strategies report the estimates are much larger than unit and closer to previous indirect estimates. We show our results are robust when applied to Aguiar and Hurst's (2007) sample, in which they employed the indirect estimation. The larger goods-time EOS indicates policies aiding households with money for groceries like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are more sufficient, since money for certain groceries can more easily substitute for time in making meals. Chapter 3 explores the elasticity of trade with respect to port congestion time. U.S. ports have struggled with significant supply chain congestion during the past two years. Anecdotal evidence shows the increasing port congestion brought substantial losses to U.S. exports, particularly agricultural shipments. However, previous studies are limited by the availability of explicit data on congestion times for unloading. This study first quantifies the association between port congestion days and U.S. agricultural exports, using monthly export data of top U.S. ports and their monthly average container and bulk shipments delays. We find one extra day delay of container shipments decreases U.S. agricultural monthly exports by 5 percent in quantity or 2 percent in value on average. That amounts to $63 million in monthly loss of export value on average, and Western U.S. ports are responsible for 69 percent of this total. The effect is most pronounced for the Western U.S. exports of bulk commodities, where congestion results in a 9 percent loss in quantity or 8 percent loss in value. For Eastern U.S., the most salient effect is on consumer commodities, with a loss of 3 percent in quantity and 3 percent in value. For the Gulf region, the largest effect is on bulk commodities, with a loss of 4 percent in quantity and 5 percent in value. The impacts of congestion on bulk shipments are both statistically and economically insignificant. However, we find some evidence that exporters substitute bulk cargoes with containers when bulk shipment delays at ports increase. The substitution of container shipments with bulk shipments, however, is unlikely.
Evaluating the Trade Impacts of Bovine Spongiform Ecephalopathy (BSE) Using Historical Simulations
Peterson, Everett B.; Grant, Jason H.; Sydow, Sharon (Virginia Tech, 2017-10)
In December of 2003, the US Secretary of Agriculture announced the presence of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) within a cow in the state of Washington. The announcement prompted the stoppage of beef imports by some of the US’s largest traditional beef trading partners, resulting in sizeable losses to industry. While this was the first confirmed case of BSE reported in the United States, the international policy response was significant in nearly every major U.S. beef export market. NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada opened their markets to U.S. beef rather quickly following the announcement. However, other markets, including many of the top US export destinations such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China, remained closed for much longer periods and China’s market remained closed until September 2016. In this paper, a partial equilibrium model of global meat production and trade is developed to conduct a series of historical simulations over the period 2001 to 2013 to capture the observed impacts of the BSE outbreak on global meat trade. Then a set of counter-factual experiments are constructed that adjusts the changes in preferences and technical change in the historical simulation to determine what beef meat trade would have looked like if the BSE outbreak had not occurred. Over the 2004-2013 period, total US beef exports would have been approximately 2 million metric tons higher and the total value of beef exports would have been $6.1 billion higher if the BSE outbreak had not occurred. Canadian beef exports would also have been 350,000 metric tons higher and with the total value of exports increasing by $1.7 billion if the BSE outbreak had not occurred. Conversely, the value of beef exports from Australia, New Zealand, the EU, and South America would have be substantially lower.
An Examination of Virginia's Adult SNAP-Ed Program by Cost-Effectiveness Using Program Cost and Participant Self-Evaluations
Strayer, Thomas Edward III (Virginia Tech, 2015-08-31)
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) is an extension of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that aims to promote living healthier lifestyles for low-income participants of SNAP with limited resources. This thesis aims to investigate the effectiveness of Virginia's adult SNAP-Ed program through a cost-effective analysis (CEA) for fiscal year 2013 which requires the separation of the into the costs and the effects of the program. The costs for the program are categories as the labor, capital, material, and utility costs that are required to implement the adult SNAP-Ed program. The effects are measured as the number of participants who start, graduate, and improve from the start to the end of the program. The effects were measured on a retrospective self-assessment that measured both if a participant graduated and their magnitude of improvement. The analysis showed that as the state of Virginia the adult SNAP-Ed program incurred a cost of $2,488,170.07 with 6,759 participants starting the program and 3,704 of those that graduated in fiscal year 2013. Participants that improved on at least one of the questions by a score of one were 3,609 of the 3,704 that graduated. For the state of Virginia the cost effective ratio (CER) for starting a participant was $368 and CER of $672 for each graduated participant. An improvement on at least one question saw a CER value of $689. These findings show patterns that can be used for future policy implementation and the focus of the program.
Farmland Conservation Easement Valuation Using an Attribute-based Choice Survey: Comparing Preferences within the United States, Georgia, Ohio and Maine
Fuller, Harry Matthew (Virginia Tech, 2011-05-02)
Farmland preservation has long been viewed by the public as a worthwhile endeavor. A public program can be set up to bring willing buyers and sellers together to facilitate the transfer of development rights. The farmer is paid for the opportunity cost of forfeiting the development rights to the land, while the general public is taxed the amount of their total benefit created by the existence of farmland. Through the data from an attribute-based choice survey (conducted in four geographic areas) the willingness-to-pay (WTP) of the public to preserve farmland that exhibited certain attributes, was estimated. The attributes included different use (grain, hay, vegetable, pasture, forest), location (near urban), quality (prime), size (varied acreage relative to geographic area sampled), and cost (varied costs from $3 to $50) components. Selection bias was tested for in order to confirm that the respondents are an unbiased representation of the geographic areas sampled. If selection bias was present, it would need to be corrected for in order to aggregate the survey results to the population of the geographic areas. Selection bias was tested for using a bivariate probit model with sample selection, a variation on the Heckman correction model. Selection bias was not significant, so the choice model was estimated using a probit model. The response was dependent on the use, location, quality, size, and cost components. Based on the parameter estimates, the geographic areas were compared using the scale parameter. A variation of the Swait and Louviere method was used to find the optimal scale parameter ratios between pair-wise geographic areas. Heterogeneity of the parameter estimates as well as heterogeneity of variances was tested. Prime farmland was significant and positive in all geographic areas, suggesting it should be included in the national ranking criteria for a farmland preservation program. WTP by household for each attribute was reported. Additionally, the WTP was aggregated to provide a hypothetical range of the monetary benefit farmland provides for the residents of each geographic area.
Futures-Based Forecasts of U.S. Crop Prices
Zhu, Jiafeng (Virginia Tech, 2017-10-03)
Over the last decade, U.S. crop prices have become significantly more volatile. Volatile markets pose increased risks for the agricultural market participants and create a need for reliable price forecasts. Research discussed in this paper aims to find different approaches to forecast crop cash prices based on the prices of related futures contracts. Corn, soybeans, soft red winter wheat, and cotton are the focus of this research. Since price data for these commodities is non-stationary, this paper used two approaches to solve this problem. The first approach is to forecast the difference in prices between current and future period and the second is to use the regimes. This paper considers the five-year moving average approach as the benchmark when comparing these approaches. This research evaluated model performance using R-squared, mean errors, root mean squared errors, the modified Diebold-Mariano test, and the encompassing test. The results show that both the difference model and the regime model render better performance than the benchmark in most cases, but without a significant difference between each other. Based on these findings, the regime model was used to make forecasts of the cash prices of corn and soybeans, the difference model was used to make predictions for cotton, and the benchmark was used to forecast the SRW cash price.
Has Covid19 Caused a Great Trade Collapse? An Initial Ex Post Assessment
Arita, Shawn; Grant, Jason H.; Sydow, Sharon (Virginia Tech. Center for Agricultural Trade, 2020-11)
This paper conducts an early econometric examination of the impacts of COVID-19 on international trade. We find the pandemic reduced global agricultural trade by 4.2% in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2020. Agricultural trade was found to be significantly more stable than nonagricultural trade; however, the level of disruption varies substantially across commodities.
Has global agricultural trade been resilient under coronavirus (COVID-19)? Findings from an econometric assessment of 2020
Arita, Shawn; Grant, Jason H.; Sydow, Sharon; Beckman, Jayson (Elsevier, 2022-02)
Global agricultural trade, which increased at the end of 2020, has been described as "resilient" to the impacts of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic; however, the size and channels of its quantitative impacts are not clear. Using a reduced-form, gravity-based econometric model for monthly trade, we estimate the effects of COVID-19 incidence rates, policy restrictions imposed by governments to curb the outbreak, and the de facto reduction in human mobility/lockdown effect on global agricultural trade through the end of 2020. We find that while agricultural trade remained quite stable through the pandemic, the sector as a whole did not go unscathed. First, we estimate that COVID-19 reduced agricultural trade by the approximate range of 5 to 10 percent at the aggregate sector level; a quantified impact two to three times smaller in magnitude than our estimated impact on trade occurring in the non-agricultural sector. Second, we find sharp differences across individual commodities. In particular, we find that non-food items (hides and skins, ethanol, cotton, and other commodities), meat products including seafood, and higher value agri-food products were most severely impacted by the pandemic; however, the COVID-19 trade effect for the majority of food and bulk agricultural commodity sectors were found to be insignificant, or in a few cases, positive. Finally, we also examine the effects across low vs high income countries, the changing dynamics of the pandemic's effect on trade flows, and the effects along the extensive product margins of trade.
Hidden Trade Costs? Maximum Residue Limits and U.S. Exports of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
Hejazi, Mina; Grant, Jason H.; Peterson, Everett B. (Center for Agricultural Trade, 2018-07)
Consecutive rounds of trade negotiations at the multilateral and regional level have resulted in significant reductions to agricultural tariffs. However, agricultural economists and policy makers alike agree that non-tariff measures (NTMs) are more obscure in nature and have the potential to be more trade distorting. Among the list of NTMs, Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures play an influential role in agri-food product trade. In this article we focus on a specific type of SPS measure known as maximum residue limits (MRLs) that features prominently in multilateral and regional trade negotiations. The purpose of this research project is threefold. First, we construct a comprehensive database of country-and-product specific MRLs for global fresh fruit and vegetable trade that varies by pesticide chemical type: herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. Second, we develop a new index summarizing the extent of bilateral MRL stringency between importing and exporting countries on pesticide tolerances focusing specific attention on the U.S. and its bilateral trading partners. Third, formal econometric models are developed to quantify and test the degree to which more stringent MRL standards in importing countries as compared to comparable domestic standards that exist in exporting countries restrict fresh fruit and vegetable trade. The results suggest importer MRL standards that are stricter than exporter MRLs can impart significant reductions in bilateral fresh fruit and vegetable trade.
The Impact of Technical Measures on Agricultural Trade: A Case of Uganda, Senegal, and Mali."Improving Food Security through Agricultural Trade"
Nakakeeto, Gertrude (Virginia Tech, 2011-07-08)
This thesis estimates the impact of non-tariff measures (NTMs) notified by the importing countries on agricultural trade. The non-tariff measures constitute the technical measures notified under the SPS and TBT agreements and the non-technical measures to trade. Two approaches are used; the inventory approach and the econometric approach which makes use of the gravity model. The inventory results suggest that African countries face more restrictions on their exports than what they impose on their imports. Also, Uganda, Senegal and Mali are among the top twenty most affected importers. The empirical results suggest that the impact of the overall group on non-tariff measures is ambiguous but when measures are disaggregated into technical and non-technical measures, the results show that the technical measures promote agricultural trade and that the non-technical measures restrict trade. Also, imports of industrialized nations from fellow industrialized nations are promoted by the technical measures but are restricted by non-technical measures, while those from non-industrialized countries are affected negatively by both technical and non-technical measures. Out of the five regions considered, Africa faces the largest negative impact by both technical and non-technical measures.
The Impacts of Food Safety Fears and Policy on International Trade: Trade Creation, Diversion, and Depression as a Result of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
Jordan, Steven Earl (Virginia Tech, 2017-01-25)
In December of 2003, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture announced the presence of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) within a cow in the state of Washington. The announcement prompted the cessation of beef imports by the largest traditional beef trading partners with the United States, resulting in immediately realized losses to the U.S. industry. This thesis evaluates the short- and long-term impact this discovery and subsequent policies had on the global beef market. We utilize market share analysis to examine the loss realized by the U.S. over a 13-year time frame, then employ a log-linear gravity model with fixed effects to quantify the changes in global export and import values and quantities using a novel bilateral trade database spanning 16 years. We find that the policies implemented immediately on discovery of the single BSE case were often slow to be rescinded even though additional related cases of BSE were not found in the United States. We also find that the removal of said policies does not guarantee full reentry of U.S. beef products, even after a lag of several years. Finally, we find that both traditional and newly emerging suppliers of beef and beef products contributed to the slow reentry of U.S. beef within critical markets. The losses and implications of the aforementioned policies detailed within this thesis suggests a different approach be undertaken by regulators should another similar threat to the U.S. food supply emerge in the future.
Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the U.S. and Virginia Farms and Businesses: May 2020
Holt, Matthew T.; Bovay, John; Friedel, Jennifer S.; Isengildina-Massa, Olga; Kayser, Patrick; van Senten, Jonathan; Grant, Jason H.; Orden, David R.; Marchant, Mary A. (Virginia Tech. Agricultural and Applied Economics, 2020-05)
This report addresses various aspects of the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on Virginia’s farm and agribusiness sector as of the beginning of May 2020. At the time of this writing (May 7, 2020) the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports approximately 1.2 million cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the United States, and over 70,000 deaths.1 Virginia’s Department of Public Health reports over 21,000 cases and over 700 deaths.2 33.5 million people have filed for unemployment claims in the United States since mid-March.3 The economic impacts of the disease have been felt much more broadly, as businesses have been forced to close or operate under different conditions, and as consumer spending power declines. As we look ahead, there is tremendous uncertainty about how the pandemic will end and how it will affect the global economy and our individual lives and livelihoods both in the short term and permanently. This report includes a general economic outlook, by Matthew Holt; overviews of the pandemic’s disruptions to the U.S. food supply chain and several major agricultural industries in Virginia, by John Bovay; an overview of agricultural policy under the pandemic, by Jennifer Friedel; a detailed analysis of effects of the pandemic on Virginia grain markets, by Olga Isengildina Massa and Patrick Kayser; an overview of results of a national survey of the impacts of the pandemic on aquaculture producers, with a focus on Virginia’s main aquaculture products, by Jonathan van Senten; and analysis of the current state of affairs for U.S.-China agricultural trade, by Jason Grant, David Orden, and Mary Marchant.

Browsing by Author "Grant, Jason H."

Results Per Page

Sort Options