@article{Bussolo:331331, recid = {331331}, author = {Bussolo, Maurizio and Niimi, Yoko}, title = {Do the Poor benefit from Regional Trade Pacts? An Illustration from the Central America Free Trade Agreement in Nicaragua}, address = {2005}, pages = {48}, year = {2005}, note = {Presented at the 8th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis, Lübeck, Germany}, abstract = {This paper main objective is providing an ex-ante assessment of the poverty and income distribution impacts of a Central America Free Trade Area agreement for Nicaragua. A general equilibrium macro model is used to simulate trade reform scenarios and to estimate their price effects, and a micro-module maps these price changes into variations of real incomes at the individual household level. A useful insight from this analysis is that even if the final total impact on poverty is not too large, its dispersion across households – due to their heterogeneity in terms of factor endowments, inputs use, commodity production, and consumption preferences – is significant and this should be taken into account when designing compensatory policies. Additionally a growth and redistribution decomposition shows that, at least in the short to medium run, redistribution can be as important as growth. A main policy advice emerges: to boost trade-induced poverty reductions, Nicaragua should consider enlarging its own liberalization to countries other than the US.}, url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/331331}, }