TY - JOUR AU - Huang, Jikun AU - Liu, Yu AU - Martin, Will AU - Rozelle, Scott TI - Agricultural Trade Reform and Rural Prosperity: Lessons from China JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 13958 PY - 2008 Y2 - April 2008 DO - 10.3386/w13958 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13958 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13958.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Jikun Huang Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy Rm 3826 Chinese Academy of Sciences Jia 11, Datun Road, Anwai Beijing 100101 CHINA Fax: 86-10-64856533 E-Mail: jkhuang.ccap@igsnrr.ac.cn Yu Liu Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy Jia 11, Datun Rd, Anwai Beijing 100101 CHINA E-Mail: liuy.04b@igsnrr.ac.cn Will Martin International Food Policy Research Institute 1201 I St NW Washington, DC 20005 Tel: 202-862 5628 E-Mail: W.Martin@cgiar.org Scott Rozelle Stanford University Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Encina Hall E407 Stanford, CA 94305-6055 E-Mail: rozelle@stanford.edu M1 - published as Jikun Huang, Yu Liu, Will Martin, Scott Rozelle. "Agricultural Trade Reform and Rural Prosperity: Lessons from China," in Robert C. Feenstra and Shang-Jin Wei, editors, "China's Growing Role in World Trade" University of Chicago Press (2010) M3 - presented at "18th Annual East Asian Seminar on Economics", June 22-24, 2007 AB - Tariffs on agricultural products fell sharply in China both prior to, and as a consequence of, China's accession to the WTO. The paper examines the nature of agricultural trade reform in China since 1981, and finds that protection was quite strongly negative for most commodities, and particularly for exported goods, at the beginning of the reforms. Since then, the taxation of agriculture has declined sharply, with the abolition of production quotas and procurement pricing, and reductions in trade distortions for both imported and exported goods. Rural well-being has improved partly because of these reforms, and also because of strengthening of markets, public investment in infrastructure, research and development, health and education, and reductions in barriers to mobility of labor out of agriculture. Many challenges remain in improving rural incomes and reducing rural poverty. ER -