This book addresses a number of issues related to the estimation and application of elasticities in international agricultural trade. It is the outgrowth of renewed interest by researchers, traders, and others in quantifying those factors that affect international trade of agricultural products.

This book addresses a number of issues related to the estimation and application of elasticities in international agricultural trade. It is the outgrowth of renewed interest by researchers, traders, and others in quantifying those factors that affect international trade of agricultural products.

In this collection of 17 articles, top scholars synthesize and analyze scholarship on this widely used tool of policy analysis, setting forth its accomplishments, difficulties, and means of implementation. Though CGE modeling does not play a prominent role in top US graduate schools, it is employed universally in the development of economic policy. This collection is particularly important because it presents a history of modeling applications and examines competing points of view. - Presents coherent summaries of CGE theories that inform major model types - Covers the construction of CGE databases, model solving, and computer-assisted interpretation of results - Shows how CGE modeling has made a contribution to economic policy

One cannot exaggerate the importance of estimating how international trade responds to changes in income and prices. But there is a tension between whether one should use models that fit the data but that contradict certain aspects of the underlying theory or models that fit the theory but contradict certain aspects of the data. The essays in Estimating Trade Elasticities book offer one practical approach to deal with this tension. The analysis starts with the practical implications of optimising behaviour for estimation and it follows with a re-examination of the puzzling income elasticity for US imports that three decades of studies have not resolved. The analysis then turns to the study of the role of income and prices in determining the expansion in Asian trade, a study largely neglected in fifty years of research. With the new estimates of trade elasticities, the book examines how they assist in restoring the consistency between elasticity estimates and the world trade identity.

Using economic models and empirical analysis, this volume examines a wide range of agricultural and biofuel policy issues and their effects on American agricultural and related agrarian insurance markets. Beginning with a look at the distribution of funds by insurance programs—created to support farmers but often benefiting crop processors instead—the book then examines the demand for biofuel and the effects of biofuel policies on agricultural price uncertainty. Also discussed are genetically engineered crops, which are assuming an increasingly important role in arbitrating tensions between energy production, environmental protection, and the global food supply. Other contributions discuss the major effects of genetic engineering on worldwide food markets. By addressing some of the most challenging topics at the intersection of agriculture and biotechnology, this volume informs crucial debates.