Trade Standards and the Political Economy of Genetically Modified Food

Anderson, Kym; Damania, Richard; Jackson, Lee Ann

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Trade Standards and the Political Economy of Genetically Modified Food

33 Pages Posted: 22 Sep 2004

See all articles by Kym Anderson

Kym Anderson

University of Adelaide - Centre for International Economic Studies (CIES); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Australian National University

Richard Damania

World Bank; University of Adelaide - School of Economics

Lee Ann Jackson

World Trade Organization (WTO)

There are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: August 2004

Abstract

A common-agency lobbying model is developed to help understand why North America and the European Union have adopted such different policies towards genetically modified food. Our results show that when firms (in this case farmers) lobby policy-makers to influence standards and consumers and environmentalists care about the choice of standard, it is possible that increased competition from abroad can lead to strategic incentives to raise standards, not just lower them as shown in earlier models. This theoretical proposition is supported by numerical results from a global general equilibrium model of GM adoption in America without and with an EU moratorium.

Keywords: GMOs, political economy, regulation of standards, trade policy

JEL Classification: F13, O33, O38, Q17, Q18

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Anderson, Kym and Damania, Richard and Jackson, Lee Ann, Trade Standards and the Political Economy of Genetically Modified Food (August 2004). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=594342