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The bias against agriculture: Trade and macroeconomic policies in developing countries
Brief Reviews Weidenbaum’s findings should caution those who see industrial engineering as the latter-day counterpart to social engineering and those who look to the peace dividend as their social working capital. It just isn’t so. Harvey Sicherman Soldat: Refldons of a German Soldier, 19361949. By Sigfried Knappe and Ted Brusaw. New York: Orion Books, 1992. 384 pp. $23.00. Knappe draws upon war diaries and his own recollections to create a compelling personal account of Germany’s nightmare years. His service as an artillery officer spanned the entire spectrum of German military operations from the initial conquest of the Sudentenland in I936 to the final days of the Third Reich in 1945. In between, he found himself serving in almost every major front in the European theatre: France, Russia, Poland, and Italy. All this makes him eminently well suited to the task of retelling the Second World War from the viewpoint of the average German soldier. Knappe’s own personal growth during the war years makes this book so readable and enjoyable. Starting as an idealistic, young officer who proudly marched into the Sudentenland to avenge Germany’s honor after the humiliation of Versailles, he gradually begins to question his government and its cause. By 1945, Knappe, now a major and sickened by the war, finds himself face-to-face in the Fuhrer-bunker with Adolf Hitler during the final days of the Battle of Berlin. For several seconds, Knappe seriously entertained the idea of shooting Hitler and ending the madness he witnessed around him. Then, taken into Russian captivity upon the capitulation of the Reich, Knappe spent five years as a prisoner in various detention camps in the Soviet Union. During this time, he came to accept the fact of Germany’s aggression and crimes against the world. S&!&is a deeply personal and historically expansive work that provides a new perspective on the Second World War as it was seen by a brave, Jack Thomas Tomarchio honorable man who happened to be the enemy.
INTERNATIONAI ECONOMICS by Patrick Clawson Policies in The Bias Agahst Agrlculm Tradeand Macroeconomic DevelopingCounties. Editedby RomeoBautista andAlbertoValdes. SanFrancisco, Calif.: International Center for Economic Growth, 1993. 340 pp. $24.95 (paper). For decades, the word “development” has been nearly synonymous with “industrialization,” The essence of a modern economy was assumed to consist of large factories. Agriculture was seen as providing the resources to fund industry. On the advice of eminent economists, governments adopted a host of policies to promote industry-policies that had the effect of either hurting farmers directly or diverting resources that would otherwise have gone to agriculture. Government allocation of foreign exchange, which typically meant
672 I Orbis
Brief Reviews that the revenue from agriculture exports was used to subsidize imports for industry, had particularly pernicious effects. Policies adopted ostensibly to help farmers, such as gove~ent-in funds designed to stabilize prices, frequently siphoned off resources into government coffers. Bautista and Valdes have gathered eight studies that document this systematic bias against agriculture in Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Nigeria, Zaire, Pakistan, and the Philippines, as well as three essays which survey policies in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Some chapters are quite technica and the volume as a whole is a bit dated, being the product of a June 1987 conference. Anne Krueger provides a useful Sudan of the effects of trade policy on agriculture in her essay, ‘Some Policy Perspectives.” The editor’s conclusion, “Towards More Rational Trade and Macroeconomic Policies for Agriculture,” summarizes the empirical findings presented in the case studies and analyzes the effects of overall macroeconomic policy on agriculture. Odin Knudsen and John Nash’s “Agricultural Price Stabilization as Risk Reduction in Developing Countries,” is a pa~~larly valuable primer on how to help farmers reduce the risks from price fluctuations without recourse to heavy-handed schemes that can turn into disguised tax-collecting mechanisms. The Developing Countries in World Trade: Policies and Baagaining Strategies. Edited by Diana Tussie and David Clover. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1993. 267 pp. $17.95 (paper). Li~ralization of ~temational trade was ove~he~~y the affair of the advanced industrial nations until the 1990s. Developing countries insisted on setting up stiff barriers to trade to permit development of their infant industries. The rules of the game have changed for the better in the last few years, as developing countries now fight for increased access for their products to advanced country markets. Tussie and Clover have assembled twelve essays that consider their techniques in the battle for trade liberalization. Among the strategies discussed are high tariff reduction (used in Latin America), bilateral agreement with one’s largest trading partner (Mexico and Canada, the latter of which is peculiarly classified here as a developing country), and negotiated loopholes and vague deftitions that made restraints much less effective in practice than they appeared on the surface (the Asian countries). The topic is ~po~nt, but u~o~nately, the essays are not truly fast-rate. The authors all too often rely on the work of others instead of doing their own original empirical work. Moreover, the essays assume too much knowledge about trade procedures and the history of trade negotiations to make the volume fully useful for undergraduates. Fair Trade: Reform and Reality in the Ix&ernationalTradhg System. By Michael Barratt Brown. Atlantic Highlands, NJ.: Zed Books, 1993.226pp. $49.95 ($17.50, paper). A long-standing enemy of the free market system, Brown casts his argument in a new way for the post-communist era. He begins with a long Fall1993 1 673
INTERNATIONAI ECONOMICS by Patrick Clawson Policies in The Bias Agahst Agrlculm Tradeand Macroeconomic DevelopingCounties. Editedby RomeoBautista andAlbertoValdes. SanFrancisco, Calif.: International Center for Economic Growth, 1993. 340 pp. $24.95 (paper). For decades, the word “development” has been nearly synonymous with “industrialization,” The essence of a modern economy was assumed to consist of large factories. Agriculture was seen as providing the resources to fund industry. On the advice of eminent economists, governments adopted a host of policies to promote industry-policies that had the effect of either hurting farmers directly or diverting resources that would otherwise have gone to agriculture. Government allocation of foreign exchange, which typically meant
672 I Orbis
Brief Reviews that the revenue from agriculture exports was used to subsidize imports for industry, had particularly pernicious effects. Policies adopted ostensibly to help farmers, such as gove~ent-in funds designed to stabilize prices, frequently siphoned off resources into government coffers. Bautista and Valdes have gathered eight studies that document this systematic bias against agriculture in Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Nigeria, Zaire, Pakistan, and the Philippines, as well as three essays which survey policies in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Some chapters are quite technica and the volume as a whole is a bit dated, being the product of a June 1987 conference. Anne Krueger provides a useful Sudan of the effects of trade policy on agriculture in her essay, ‘Some Policy Perspectives.” The editor’s conclusion, “Towards More Rational Trade and Macroeconomic Policies for Agriculture,” summarizes the empirical findings presented in the case studies and analyzes the effects of overall macroeconomic policy on agriculture. Odin Knudsen and John Nash’s “Agricultural Price Stabilization as Risk Reduction in Developing Countries,” is a pa~~larly valuable primer on how to help farmers reduce the risks from price fluctuations without recourse to heavy-handed schemes that can turn into disguised tax-collecting mechanisms. The Developing Countries in World Trade: Policies and Baagaining Strategies. Edited by Diana Tussie and David Clover. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1993. 267 pp. $17.95 (paper). Li~ralization of ~temational trade was ove~he~~y the affair of the advanced industrial nations until the 1990s. Developing countries insisted on setting up stiff barriers to trade to permit development of their infant industries. The rules of the game have changed for the better in the last few years, as developing countries now fight for increased access for their products to advanced country markets. Tussie and Clover have assembled twelve essays that consider their techniques in the battle for trade liberalization. Among the strategies discussed are high tariff reduction (used in Latin America), bilateral agreement with one’s largest trading partner (Mexico and Canada, the latter of which is peculiarly classified here as a developing country), and negotiated loopholes and vague deftitions that made restraints much less effective in practice than they appeared on the surface (the Asian countries). The topic is ~po~nt, but u~o~nately, the essays are not truly fast-rate. The authors all too often rely on the work of others instead of doing their own original empirical work. Moreover, the essays assume too much knowledge about trade procedures and the history of trade negotiations to make the volume fully useful for undergraduates. Fair Trade: Reform and Reality in the Ix&ernationalTradhg System. By Michael Barratt Brown. Atlantic Highlands, NJ.: Zed Books, 1993.226pp. $49.95 ($17.50, paper). A long-standing enemy of the free market system, Brown casts his argument in a new way for the post-communist era. He begins with a long Fall1993 1 673