Eco Landuse Systems staff has expertise in the areas described below.

A. Trade Policy

B. Commodities

C. Environment

Click on these areas to see more details. Each area contains links to a list of relevant publications. In some cases abstracts, summaries or full papers may be found.

Trade liberalisation is commonly espoused but many fiercely resist it, and hence this remains a source of conflict and debate. Whereas losers from a policy change are often regionally concentrated, readily identified and vocal, gainers are dispersed and silent. To get acceptance of change, policy makers need sound assessments of the likely trade flows and distributional impacts. The impacts of the multilateral negotiations have been analysed using general equilibrium models A35). Other trade policy topics addressed include strategic trade policy(A1-A3, A5-A6), South African trade sanctions (A7), the effects of falling global grain stocks on price stability and food security in developed and developing countries (A16), and US farm price supports (A4).

The interests of developing countries in multilateral trade negotiations will need to be given greater consideration than previously if progress is to be made in the current round of multilateral trade negotiations. Modelling the impacts of policy changes on individual developing countries requires a detailed coverage of tropical products, a high level of regional disaggregation, and information on bound and applied tariffs and the distribution of quota rents. A highly disaggregated partial equilibrium trade model, ATPSM, is used to illustrate the effects of alternative trade liberalisation scenarios (A19) and (A21). Applications include a focus on small islands development states (A22), and analysis of the EU, US and Harbinson proposals on agriculture (A23). Other applications demonstrate the large number of WTO members that are potentially disadvantaged by multilateral liberalisation (A24) and (A25). Other applications look at Vietnam (A36) and Turkey (A39). A more recent application looks at the scope for compromise post Cancun (A28). A general equilibrium analysis, using GTAP, illustrates the importance of intersectoral linkages in analysing trade liberalisation impacts (A26). GTAP is also used to analyse industrial tariffs in the non-agricultural market access negotiations (A29).

The Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture permits member governments to pursue non-trade concerns in its built-in agenda for future negotiations. At one extreme proponents of these so-called multifunctional benefits of agriculture believe they justify substantial production-distorting support while the alternative view is that these hard-to-value benefits are merely a smokescreen disguised protection to agriculture. This chapter in a World Bank report is a guide to negotiators (A20).

Oversupply of coffee caused a dramatic fall in coffee prices in the 1990s. Numerous solutions have been suggested. Ultimately, diversification away from coffee production is likely to be necessary. In the short term, however, some form of supply constraint offers the possibility of raising incomes for many poor producers and encouraging the reallocation of resources to more productive activities. This paper looks at the scope for supply controls. (B1).