Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:15:16.841Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Achieving Environmental Objectives Under Reduced Domestic Agricultural Support and Trade Liberalization: An Empirical Application to Taiwan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Hung-Hao Chang
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Richard N. Boisvert
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
David Blandford
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology at the Pennsylvania State University

Abstract

We focus on rice policy reform required for Taiwan's admission to the WTO, and examine the effects, theoretically and empirically, of the re-instrumentation of domestic policy needed to achieve environmental objectives when both positive and negative environmental externalities exist. Policies that treat non-commodity attributes in agriculture as secondary to existing aims, such as income support, are unlikely to result in the desired supplies of environmental goods. Those supplies can be achieved at lower government and social costs using policy instruments to achieve environmental goals directly. Results are relatively insensitive to the social values assigned to environmental goods.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbott, P., and Paarlberg, P. 1998. “Tariff Rate Quotas: Structural and Stability Impacts in Growing Markets.” Agricultural Economics 19(3): 257267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asia Development Bank. 1998. “Asia Least Cost Greenhouse Gas Abatement Strategy: People's Republic of China.” Global Environment Facility, Manila, the Philippines. Google Scholar
Asian Productivity Organization. 2001. Role of Multifunctionality in Agricultural Policy Reforms. Report of an APO seminar, January 26-February 3, 2000, Tokyo, Japan.Google Scholar
Barends, F., Brouwer, F., and Schroeder, F. (eds.). 1995. “Land Subsidence: By Fluid Withdrawal, by Solid Extraction, Theory and Modelling, Environmental Effects and Remedial Measures.” In Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium on Land Subsidence. From the symposium held in The Hague, the Netherlands.Google Scholar
Barnett, A.H. 1980. “The Pigouvian Tax Rule under Monopoly.” American Economic Review 70(5): 10371041.Google Scholar
Baumol, W., and Oates, W.E. 1988. The Theory of Environmental Policy (2nd edition). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhagwati, J., and Ramaswami, K. 1963. “Domestic Distortions, Tariffs, and the Theory of Optimal Subsidy.” Journal of Political Economy 71(1): 4450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blandford, D., and Boisvert, R.N. 2002. “Multifunctional Agriculture and Domestic/International Policy Choice.” Estey Centre Journal of International Law and Trade Policy 3(1): 106118.Google Scholar
Blandford, D., Boisvert, R., and Fulponi, L. 2003. “Non-trade Concerns: Reconciling Domestic Policy Objectives with Freer Trade in Agricultural Products.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 85(3): 668673.Google Scholar
Boisvert, R. 2001a. “A Note on the Concept of Jointness in Production.” Annex 1 in Multifunctionality: Toward an Analytical Framework. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France.Google Scholar
Boisvert, R. 2001b. “Joint Production in Four Outputs: Two Commodities and Positive and Negative Externalities.” Annex 2 in Multifunctionality: Toward an Analytical Framework. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France.Google Scholar
Boisvert, R., Chang, H., Barker, R., and Levine, G. 2003. “Measuring the Positive and Negative Externalities of Paddy Rice Production.” Paper presented at the International Commission of Irrigation and Drainage Asian Regional Workshop, Taipei, Taiwan.Google Scholar
Boughner, D., and de Gorter, H. 1999. “U.S. Dairy Policy and the Agreement on Agriculture in the WTO.” Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics 47(5): 3142.Google Scholar
Carson, R., Flores, N.E., and Hanemann, W.M. 1998. “Sequencing and Valuing Public Goods.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 36(3): 314323.Google Scholar
Chen, M.C. 2001. “Evaluation of Environmental Services of Agriculture in Taiwan.” Paper presented at the International Seminar on Multi-Functionality of Agriculture, Japan.Google Scholar
Chen, J., Wu, S., and Chang, K. 2002. “The Measurement of Externalities of Paddy Field: An Application of Contingent Valuation in Taiwan.” Annex 3 in Matsuno, Y., Ko, H., Tan, C., Barker, R., and Levine, G., “Accounting of Agricultural and Nonagricultural Impacts of Irrigation and Drainage Systems: A Study of Multifunctionality in Rice.” Working Paper No. 43, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka.Google Scholar
Council of Agriculture. 2001. “The Investigation of Agricultural Water Usage.” Taiwan (in Chinese).Google Scholar
EPA [see U.S. Environmental Protection Agency].Google Scholar
Floyd, J. 1965. “The Effects of Farm Price Supports on the Return to Land and Labor in Agriculture.” Journal of Political Economy 73(2): 148158.Google Scholar
Fraser, R. 2003. “An Evaluation of the Compensation Required by European Union Cereal Growers to Accept the Removal of Price Support.” Journal of Agricultural Economics 54(3): 431445.Google Scholar
Gardner, B. 1987. The Economics of Agricultural Policies. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Gisser, M. 1971. “A Model for Agricultural Policy: An Addendum.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 53(1): 125128.Google Scholar
Gopinath, M., and Wu, J. 1999. “Environmental Externality and the Optimal Level of Market Power.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 81(4): 825833.Google Scholar
Griffin, R., and Bromley, D. 1982. “Agricultural Runoff as a Nonpoint Externality: A Theoretical Development.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 64(3): 547552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoehn, J.P., and Randall, A. 1989. “Too Many Proposals Pass the Benefit Cost Test.” American Economic Review 79(3): 544551.Google Scholar
Holtermann, S. 1976. “Alternative Tax Systems to Correct for Externalities, and the Efficiency of Paying Compensation.” Economica 43(169): 116.Google Scholar
Huang, S. 2001. “Taiwan's Rice Import Market to Open with WTO Accession.” In Rice Situation and Outlook Yearbook/RCD-2001. Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. Available online at http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/rice/Taiwanrice.pdf.Google Scholar
Hyman, R. 2001. “A More Cost-Effective Strategy for Reducing Green House Gas Emissions: Modeling the Impact of Methane Abatement Opportunities.” Unpublished M.S. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Krutilla, K. 1991. “Environmental Regulation in an Open Economy.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 20(2): 127142.Google Scholar
Leathers, H. 1991. “Allocable Fixed Inputs as a Cause of Joint Production: A Cost Function Approach.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 73(4): 10831090.Google Scholar
Lee, D. 1975. “Efficiency of Pollution Taxation and Market Structure.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 2(1): 6972.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lichtenberg, E., and Zilberman, D. 1986. “The Welfare Economics of Price Support in U.S. Agriculture.American Economic Review 76(5): 11351141.Google Scholar
Lin, S., Pon, P., and Hsu, S. 2002. “Baseline Methane and Nitrous Oxide Emission Estimation and Forecasting of Taiwanese Agricultural Sector.” Paper presented at the 1st Applied Economics Annual Conference, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Maier, L. 1991. “The Costs and Benefits of U.S. Agricultural Policies with Imperfect Competition in Food Manufacturing.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Agricultural Economics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.Google Scholar
Matsuno, Y., Ko, H., Tan, C., Barker, R., and Levine, G. 2002. “Accounting of Agricultural and Nonagricultural Impacts of Irrigation and Drainage Systems: A Study of Multifunctionality in Rice.” Working Paper No. 43, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka.Google Scholar
Ohba, Y. 2001. “An Economic Analysis of Acreage Diversion and the Tariff-Rate Import Quota for Rice in Japan.” Unpublished M.S. thesis, Department of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.Google Scholar
Ohnishi, R., and Nakanishi, N. 2001. “Water Conservation Function and Appropriate Management of Agricultural Land.” In Role of Multifunctionality in Agricultural Policy Reforms. Report of an Asian Productivity Organization seminar, January 26-February 3, 2000, Tokyo, Japan.Google Scholar
Peterson, J., Boisvert, R., and de Gorter, H. 2002. “Environmental Policies for a Multifunctional Agricultural Sector in Open Economies.” European Review of Agricultural Economics 29(1): 127142.Google Scholar
Randall, A. 2002. “Valuing the Outputs of Multifunctional Agriculture.” Working Paper No. AEDE-WP-0023-02, Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.Google Scholar
Romstad, E. 1999. “Policies for Promoting Public Goods in Agriculture.” Discussion Paper Series D-20/1999, Department of Economics and Social Science, Agricultural University of Norway, Ås, Norway.Google Scholar
Rosine, J., and Helmberger, P. 1974. “A Neoclassical Analysis of the U.S. Farm Sector: 1948-1970.American Journal of Agricultural Economics 56(4): 717729.Google Scholar
Rude, J. 2001. “Multifunctionality: An Examination of the Issues and Remedies.” In Michelmann, H.J., Rude, J., Stabler, J., and Storey, G., eds., Globalization and Agricultural Trade Policy. Boulder, CO.: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Shortle, J., and Dunn, J. 1986. “The Relative Efficiency of Agricultural Source Water Pollution Control Policies.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 68(3): 668778.Google Scholar
Shortle, J.R., Horan, R.D., and Abler, D. 1998. “Research Issues in Nonpoint Pollution Control.” Environmental and Resource Economics Review 11(3-4): 571585.Google Scholar
Shumway, C., Pope, R., and Nash, E. 1984. “Allocable Fixed Inputs and Jointness in Agricultural Production: Implications for Economic Modeling.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 66(1): 7278.Google Scholar
Tirole, J. 1988. The Theory of Industrial Organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Tsai, M. 1993. “The Public Benefit Externality of Taiwanese Paddy Rice.” Council of Agriculture, Taipei, Taiwan. Google Scholar
Tsai, S., and Wann, J. 1995. “Selecting Functional Form for Empirical Economic Model: The Case of Taiwan Rice Production Function.” Taiwanese Agricultural Economic Review 1(2): 187216 (in Chinese with English summary).Google Scholar
Tyrchniewicz, E., and Schuh, G. 1969. “Econometric Analysis of the Agricultural Labor Market.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 51(4): 770787.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1999. “U.S. Methane Emission 1990-2020: Inventories, Projections, and Opportunities for Reductions.” Office of Air and Radiation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2002. “Greenhouse Gases and Global Warming Potential Values.” Office of Atmospheric Programs, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Yang, S. 2000. “The Green Gas Emission Estimation of Agriculture, Livestock Sectors: Project Final Report.” EPA-89-FALL-03-145, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Yang, M., and Chen, H. 2000. “A Policy Choice of Rice Import Issue in Taiwan.” In Chern, W., Carter, C., and Shei, S., eds., Food Security in Asia: Economics and Policies. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.Google Scholar