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Rent Seeking and International Trade in Agriculture

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Agricultural Globalization Trade and the Environment

Part of the book series: Natural Resource Management and Policy ((NRMP,volume 20))

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Abstract

Rent seeking is an important activity in international agricultural trade. Special-interest groups initiate many protectionist trade measures. For example, the United States was recently in a trade war with the European Union over bananas and beef, and with Canada over wheat. The source of each of these particular disputes provides a good example of the various policy instruments generating contestable rents and hence trade frictions: trade rents from import quotas (bananas); domestic rents altered by own and other countries’ domestic policy (wheat); and the non-trade concerns rents (beef)i. “Non-trade concerns” rents refers to rents sought under the hubris of the new trade agenda arising from trade protectionist policies seeking to control food quality, achieve food security, internalize negative and positive externalities (that is, environment and the landscape, respectively), and enhance viability of rural areas.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cornell University, USA

    Harry de Gorter, Gordon C. Rausser & Andrew Schmitz

  2. University of California, Berkeley, USA

    Harry de Gorter, Gordon C. Rausser & Andrew Schmitz

  3. University of Florida, USA

    Harry de Gorter, Gordon C. Rausser & Andrew Schmitz

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  1. Harry de Gorter
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  2. Gordon C. Rausser
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  3. Andrew Schmitz
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Charles B. Moss Gordon C. Rausser Andrew Schmitz Timothy G. Taylor David Zilberman

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de Gorter, H., Rausser, G.C., Schmitz, A. (2002). Rent Seeking and International Trade in Agriculture. In: Moss, C.B., Rausser, G.C., Schmitz, A., Taylor, T.G., Zilberman, D. (eds) Agricultural Globalization Trade and the Environment. Natural Resource Management and Policy, vol 20. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1543-2_9

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