This book seeks to understand the simultaneous economic and political contributors to China's changing agricultural protection levels and the central government's choice of policy instruments to tax or assist farmers. It theoretically explores the motivation behind agricultural trade-related support policies through extending the two-sector specific factors production model to three sectors, so as to make it more relevant for a one-party state such as China. Chapter three tests that theory empirically, using panel data on agricultural distortions for the period 1981 to 2010 from Anderson and Nelgen (2013). The long-running trend in the level of assistance to the farm sector sees considerable fluctuations in support each year, which has been attributed to fluctuations in international prices of agricultural products. Chapter four seeks to explain the Chinese government's responses to world market price fluctuations. In practice, the government does have other instruments besides trade restrictions to alter domestic producer and consumer prices in the face of fluctuating international prices. Chapter five explores the role that public storage policy can play in contributing to the government's objective of stabilizing the domestic market price of farm products. The final chapter of the book draws out implications for policymakers in China and elsewhere.

China's agricultural production and food consumption have increased tremendously, leading to a complete evolution of agro-food markets. The book is divided into two parts; the first part reviews the theoretical framework for the 'social construction of the markets,' while the second part presents the implication for the agro-food markets in China.

Food and agriculture have been subject to heavy-handed government interventions throughout much of history and across the globe, both in developing and in developed countries. Today, more than half a trillion US dollars are spent by some governments to support farmers, while other governments impose regulations and taxes that hurt farmers. Some policies, such as price regulations and tariffs, distribute income but reduce total welfare by introducing economic distortions. Other policies, such as public investments in research, food standards, or land reforms, may increase total welfare, but these policies come also with distributional effects. These distributional effects influence the preferences of interest groups and in turn influence policy decisions. Political considerations are therefore crucial to understand how agricultural and food policies are determined, to identify the constraints within which welfare-enhancing reforms are possible (or not), and finally to understand how coalitions can be created to stimulate growth and reduce poverty.

This title was first published in 2003. This prominent and commanding volume collates the best research available on China's agricultural trade. Critically analyzing the agricultural supply and demand factors that underlie trade patterns such as agricultural productivity and policy, it also explores China's agricultural trade and policy including implications for China and elsewhere. Long term issues and productivity growth are taken into consideration, as are specific issues such as WTO accession. The slate of authors combines the leading established scholars in the field and the best of the next generation, including those from China and the West.

Containing ten quality chapters on China''s rural reforms and agricultural development, this first volume from the Series on Developing China: Translated Research from China emphasizes the importance of countryside, agriculture and the role of peasants in China''s economy. While the Chinese revolution has traveled a path of OC encircling the cities from the rural areasOCO, Chinese reforms were likewise started in promoting the household contract responsibility system in the rural areas OCo the majority of its population living in the countryside makes it the focus of the reforms. Such structural issues that readjustment of interests entailed as urban-rural divide and poor-rich gap are closely related to the rural reform. For this, a rural study centered on the three rural issues (agriculture, rural areas and peasants), or peasantography, is actually an academic OC gold mineOCO, which contains the richest possibilities for Chinese social science to contribute to the world. The above mentioned chapters cover an extensive range of issues in rural reform and agricultural development in China, including property right, food trade structure, the Township and Village Enterprises, non-agricultural employment, the mobility of labor force, land distribution, taxation and saving behavior. The research approach ranges from a macro- to microeconomics level, while in terms of research methodology, property theory, game model and quantitative economics are used, in combination with historiography and empirical case studies. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Academic Inquiries into the Chinese Success Story (116 KB). Contents: Academic Inquiries into the OC Chinese Success StoryOCO (Z-L Deng); Gender Inequality in the Land Tenure System of Rural China (L Zhu); The Allocation of Decision-Making Power and Changes in the Decision-Making Style: Systematic Thoughts on China''s Rural Problems (S-G Zhang & N Zhao); Farmers'' Tax Burden in Rural China: A Political Economy Analysis (R Tao et al.); Effects of Labor Out-Migration and Income Growth and Inequality in Rural China (S Li); Grain versus Food: A Hidden Issue in China''s Food Policy Debate (F Lu); Saving Behavior in a Transition Economy: An Empirical Case Study of Rural China (G-H Wan et al.); Township Enterprises and Their Interest Distribution in Reform: A Three-Player Game Model (R-Z Ke); Rural Interregional Inequality and Off-Farm Employment in China (P Zhang); Food Demand and Nutritional Elasticity in Poor Rural Areas of China (J-W Zhang & F Cai); Reform in China''s Rural Areas: The Changes in the Relationship between the State and Land Ownership OCo A Retrospect on the Changes in Economic Institutions (Q-R Zhou). Readership: Economists, political scientists, sociologists, advanced undergraduates and graduate students interested in China''s economy, rural areas and society."

This study provides up-to-date coverage of the most important domestic and external political and economic influences on Japanese trade policy, as well as the evolutionary dynamics of that policy in the post-war period.

Protectionism has been placed under the media spotlight, with news headlines generated by populist anti-globalization movements and Donald Trump's term as US President. Such a policy stance is putting at risk unilateral trade reform efforts in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere.This two-volume reference work provides a timely update on how far the region has come in opening markets. It analyzes the motivations or ostensible objectives of policies adopted in the past, the changing extent of the domestic price distortions involved, the economic effects of those policies at home and abroad, the political economy forces at work that brought about those policies and their subsequent reform, their consequences for international trade, economic welfare and poverty alleviation, and prospects for sustainable improvements in current policies. Case studies of major East Asian economies and Australia reveal how government priorities to assist farmers versus manufacturers changed over the past century but especially since the 1980s, and how that has affected trade between natural resource-poor and resource-rich economies.This set is highly recommended for those who are interested in the economics and politics of trade policies, agricultural economics, economic development, and food and nutrition security in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.