@article{Verma:332148,
      recid = {332148},
      author = {Verma, Monika and Hertel, Thomas and Valenzuela, Ernesto},
      title = {Are the Poverty Effects of Trade Policies Invisible?},
      address = {2011},
      pages = {58},
      year = {2011},
      note = {Presented at the 13th Annual Conference on Global Economic  Analysis, Penang, Malaysia},
      abstract = {Beginning with the WTO’s Doha Development Agenda and  establishment of the Millennium Development Goal of  reducing poverty by 50 percent by 2015, poverty impacts of  trade reforms have become central to the global development  agenda. This has been particularly true of agricultural  trade reforms due to the importance of grains in the diets  of the poor, presence of relatively higher protection in  agriculture, as well as heavy concentration of global  poverty in rural areas where agriculture is the main source  of income. Yet some in this debate have argued that, given  the extreme volatility in agricultural commodity markets,  the additional price and therefore poverty impacts due to  trade liberalization might well be indiscernible. This  paper formally tests the “invisibility hypothesis” using  the method of stochastic simulation in a trade-poverty  modeling framework. The hypothesis test is based on the  comparison of two samples of price and poverty  distributions. The first originates solely from the  inherent variability in global staple grains markets, while  the second combines the effects of inherent market  variability with those of trade reform in these same  markets. Results, at the national and stratum level  indicate that the short-run poverty impacts of full trade  liberalization in staple grains trade worldwide, are  distinguishable in only four of the fifteen countries,  suggesting that impacts of more modest agricultural trade  reforms are indeed likely to be invisible in short run..  Countries that show statistically significant short run  impacts are the ones characterized by high staple grains  tariffs and/or a moderate degree of grain markets  variability. Within each country, results are  heterogeneous. In two thirds of the sample countries,  agriculturally self-employed poor experience statistically  significant poverty impacts from trade liberalization.  However, this figure is under a third for all the other  strata.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/332148},
}