TY - CPAPER AB - 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. AU - Bussolo, Maurizio AU - Niimi, Yoko DA - 2005 DA - 2005 ID - 331331 KW - International Relations/Trade KW - Food Security and Poverty L1 - https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/331331/files/1821.pdf L2 - https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/331331/files/1821.pdf L4 - https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/331331/files/1821.pdf LA - eng LA - English LK - https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/331331/files/1821.pdf N1 - Presented at the 8th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis, Lübeck, Germany N2 - 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. PY - 2005 PY - 2005 T1 - Do the Poor benefit from Regional Trade Pacts? An Illustration from the Central America Free Trade Agreement in Nicaragua TI - Do the Poor benefit from Regional Trade Pacts? An Illustration from the Central America Free Trade Agreement in Nicaragua UR - https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/331331/files/1821.pdf VL - 2004 Y1 - 2005 ER -