This study performs an ex-post analysis of the effects of the trade liberalization in Mexico between 1989 and 2000, taking into account regional differences in the Mexican economy. The effects of trade liberalization are first translated into changes in regional prices and wages. Those estimates are plugged into a farm-household model to estimate the effect on households' welfare.The findings suggest that trade liberalization has affected domestic prices and labor income differently both across income groups and geographically across the country, hence producing diverse outcomes on different households. Regarding prices, the results indicate that trade liberalization has lowered relative prices of most non-animal agricultural products and, while reducing the cost of consumption, has reduced households' agricultural income, widening the income gap between urban and rural areas. The findings also show that trade liberalization has had diverse effects on wage rates. Skilled workers, for which trade liberalization has produced an increase in wages, have benefited relative to unskilled workers. Wages of unskilled workers have in many regions decreased as a result of trade liberalization. Similar differences are found in the geographic distribution of the benefits of trade liberalization, with the states closest to the U.S. border gaining threefold more relative to the least developed states in the south. Therefore trade liberalization, although beneficial, has contributed to an increase in inequality between the south and the north of the country, urban and rural areas, and skilled and unskilled labor.From a poverty perspective, the trade liberalization that occurred between 1989 and 2000 has had the direct effect of reducing poverty by about 3 percent, therefore lifting approximately 3 million individuals out of poverty.This paper - a product of Trade, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to study the linkages between trade and poverty.

Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.

"What is the effect of trade liberalization on households in developing countries? To what extent do the poor benefit when local markets are made more accommodative to international trade? The author empirically analyzes the distributional impact of trade policies on households in a low-income country with a large rural economy where labor markets are imperfect. The methodology in this paper, which can be applied to various types of labor market conditions, relates changes in prices attributed to trade reforms to changes in household welfare, income distribution, and poverty using theoretically consistent measures of producer and consumer welfare. The author investigates the effects on poverty and income distribution of national and international market integration in Vietnam's rice sector and fertilizer market between 1993 and 1998, a period of ongoing market reforms when the national poverty rate fell sharply from 59 percent to 37 percent. ... " -- Cover verso.

An estimated 1.2 billion people live on less than one dollar a day, and recent estimates indicate that over 850 million people lack sufficient food for an active healthy life, mostly in rural areas. This FAO report examines the links between agriculture, trade and poverty and considers how international agricultural trade and trade liberalisation affect the world's poor and food-insecure. Topics discussed include: trends and patterns in international agricultural trade, including trade in the least developed countries and within regions, and the role of supermarkets; policy issues including domestic support, export competition and market access; macroeconomic impacts of agricultural trade reforms for poverty reduction and pro-poor development objectives; food insecurity and trade liberalisation measures. The report recommends a twin-track approach which seeks to invest in human capital, institutions and infrastructure to enable the poor to take advantage of trade-related opportunities, while establishing safety nets to protect vulnerable members of society. This publication contains a mini CD-ROM of the "FAO Statistical Yearbook 2004 Vol. 1/1" in Arabic, Chinese, English, French and Spanish.

The main message of the study is that Central America's ability to exploit the opportunities created by ongoing trade liberalization will depend on the ability of the region to implement a complementary policy agenda that creates an enabling policy and institutional environment.