Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Sharing Gains from Trade: Global Markets and Farmers Welfare in Developing Countries

Project description

Improving farmers’ welfare in developing countries

The majority of the world’s poor live in rural areas of developing countries and rely largely on farming, livestock, aquaculture and other agricultural work to make a living. One way to reduce poverty is to develop the agricultural potential in developing countries. The EU-funded SharingGains project will investigate the causes and consequences of market failures by interacting with multiple layers of agricultural value chains. The project will also evaluate different regulatory interventions and develop flexible tools to perform counterfactual analysis and evaluate the merits of alternative policies and regulations. It will also study voluntary sustainability standards such as Fair Trade and Rainforest Alliance. These are increasingly popular responses to market failures in agricultural chains in developing countries.

Objective

The majority of the global poor live in rural areas and earn their livelihoods in agriculture. Linking farmers in developing countries (LDCs) to global markets, therefore, could potentially spur growth and reduce poverty. Market imperfections in agricultural chains in producing countries, however, limit these gains. Which policy tools, if any, help farmers in LDCs realize and share the gains from trade? I propose three broad projects that develop the tools to answer this question.
The first project designs and implements the first randomized control trial (RCT) to test for the causes and consequences of market failures interacting along multiple layers of agricultural value chains. This is a necessary step to design targeted policy responses.
The second project develops and estimates the first structural model of an agricultural value chain to evaluate different regulatory interventions. Historically, as well as today, governments have intervened in agricultural chains through a diverse array of policies and regulations. RCTs are not sufficient to evaluate these policies. The project develops flexible tools to perform counterfactual analysis and evaluate the merits of alternative policies and regulations in a variety of contexts.
The third project studies voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) (e.g. Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance). VSSs are increasingly popular responses to market failures in agricultural chains in LDCs. Unlike regulatory interventions, VSSs directly affect only market participants that take them up. The project combines quasi-experimental and structural techniques to evaluate the direct impact, the indirect spillover effects, and the broader distributional consequences of VSSs.
The three projects form a coherent research agenda that develops a comprehensive set of tools to evaluate existing agricultural policies and design better ones so that small producers in developing countries can realize and share the gains from globalization.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2018-COG

See all projects funded under this call

Host institution

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 996 009,00
Address
Houghton Street 1
WC2A 2AE London
United Kingdom

See on map

Region
London Inner London — West Westminster
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 996 009,00

Beneficiaries (1)

My booklet 0 0