Croser, JohannaAnderson, Kym2012-03-192012-03-192010-06-01https://hdl.handle.net/10986/3830For decades, agricultural price and trade policies in Sub-Saharan Africa have hampered farmers contributions to economic growth and poverty reduction. Although there has been much policy reform over the past two decades, the injections of agricultural development funding, together with ongoing regional and global trade negotiations, have brought distortionary policies under the spotlight once again. A key question asked of those policies is: How much are they still reducing national economic welfare and trade? Economy-wide models are able to address that question, but they are not available for many poor countries. Even where they are, typically they apply to just one particular previous year and so are unable to provide trends in effects over time. This paper provides a partial-equilibrium alternative to economy-wide modeling, by drawing on a modification of so-called trade restrictiveness indexes to provide theoretically precise indicators of the trade and welfare effects of agricultural policy distortions to producer and consumer prices over the past half-century. The authors generate time series of country level indexes, as well as Africa-wide aggregates. They also provide annual commodity market indexes for the region, and a sense of the relative importance of the key policy instruments used.CC BY 3.0 IGOAGRICULTURAL COMMODITIESAGRICULTURAL INCENTIVESAGRICULTURAL MARKETSAGRICULTURAL PRICEAGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIONAGRICULTURAL PRODUCTSAGRICULTURAL TRADEAGRICULTUREANTI-TRADEBENCHMARKBORDER PRICECOMMODITIESCOMMODITYCOMPETITIVE MARKETSCONSUMER PRICECONSUMER PRICESCONSUMERSDEVELOPED COUNTRIESDEVELOPING COUNTRIESDEVELOPING COUNTRYDEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCEDEVELOPMENT ECONOMICSDOLLAR VALUESDOMESTIC CONSUMPTIONDOMESTIC DEMANDDOMESTIC DISTORTIONSDOMESTIC PRICEDOMESTIC PRODUCTIONECONOMETRIC ESTIMATESECONOMIC COOPERATIONECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTECONOMIC WELFAREELASTICITY ASSUMPTIONEQUILIBRIUMEXCHANGE RATEEXCHANGE RATESEXPORT SUBSIDIESEXPORT SUBSIDYEXPORT TAXEXPORT TAX EQUIVALENTSEXPORT TAXESEXPORTABLE GOODSEXPORTSFOOD PRICESFREE TRADEGDPGENERAL EQUILIBRIUMGLOBAL MARKETSGLOBAL TRADEGROSS VALUEIMPORT TARIFFIMPORT TARIFFSIMPORT TAXIMPORT TAXESIMPORT VOLUMEIMPORTSINDEX NUMBERSINPUT PRICESINTERNATIONAL ECONOMICSINTERNATIONAL INVESTMENTINTERNATIONAL TRADEINTERNATIONAL TRADE POLICYMARKET FAILUREMARKET INDEXESNATIONAL INCOMEOPEN ECONOMYOUTPUTPARTICULAR COUNTRYPOVERTY ALLEVIATIONPREFERENTIAL TRADEPRICE CHANGEPRICE DISTORTIONPRICE DISTORTIONSPRICE ELASTICITYPRICE SUPPORTPRODUCER PRICEPRODUCER PRICESREGIONAL TRADEREGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTSSUPPLY CURVESSUPPLY FUNCTIONSSURPLUSTARIFF DATATARIFF RATETAXTAX RATETAXATIONTRADE COSTSTRADE DATATRADE DISTORTIONSTRADE EFFECTSTRADE NEGOTIATIONSTRADE POLICIESTRADE POLICYTRADE PRICESTRADE REDUCTIONTRADE TAXTRADE VOLUMETRANSITION ECONOMIESTRANSPARENCYVALUE OF IMPORTSVOLUME OF TRADEWELFARE ECONOMICSWELFARE IMPACTSWELFARE LOSSWELFARE LOSSESWorld Bankhttps://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-5344