Why Governments Tax or Subsidize Trade : Evidence from Agriculture

Gawande, Kishore ; Hoekman, Bernard

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AGRICULTURAL CONSUMPTION;    AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS;    AGRICULTURAL EXPORTS;    AGRICULTURAL MARKETS;    AGRICULTURAL OUTPUT;   

RP-ID  :  55958

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper empirically explores thepolitical-economic determinants of why governments choose totax or subsidize trade in agriculture. The authors use a newdata set on nominal rates of assistance (NRA) across anumber of commodities spanning the last five decades for 64countries. NRAs measure the effect on domestic (relative toworld) price of the quantitative and price-based instrumentsused to regulate agricultural markets. The data set admitsconsideration of both taxes and subsidies on exports andimports. The authors find that both economic and politicalvariables play important roles in determining thewithin-variation in the NRA data. Based on results theauthors offer a number of data-driven exploratory hypothesesthat can inform future theoretical and empirical research onwhy governments choose to tax or subsidize agriculturalproducts an important policy question that is also one ofthe least understood by scholars.