Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda

Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda

Abstract

European Review of Agricultural Economics Vol 33 (4) (2006) pp. 591 –601 Kym Anderson and Will Martin (eds) Palgrave MacMillan/The World Bank, Washington, 2005. ISBN: 0-8213-6239-9, 420 pp, Price: £19.99 (paperback). Multilateral trade negotiations in the WTO under the Doha Development Agenda, often called the Doha Round, were suspended at the end of July 2006 because of the failure to reach an agreement on Modalities, especially on market access and domestic support (DS) for agricultural products. Although leading WTO members have emphasised their commitment to continue negotiations, a significant delay of any conclusion seems very likely. These developments contribute to the timeliness of this World Bank publication, which is also a political input for the negotiations at a critical stage, offering analyses of negotiations and the impact of their potential conclusion based on the Framework Agreement reached in August 2004. The analyses reported are based to a large extent on the most recent state of negotiations. After a summary of key results by the editors, the book contains eleven chapters authored by different researchers. Many cross-references between chapters exist, which adds value to the collective publication of papers. Two chapters analyse the general impact of various liberalisation scenarios